IT'S on. And the Federal Government wasted no time in announcing something for the regions.

It's  offered $225 million for a Building Better Regional Cities program.

The money will aim to build affordable housing and infrastructure in regional centres where jobs growth is projected and housing is scarce.

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It's a start, but one hopes this isn't the best regional announcement the Government can come up with.

While Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce copped a hammering from Labor's Lindsay Tanner when they were opposed in the finance folios, Senator Joyce will pull Labor apart on regional issues.

He's done it here with the Government's first announcement. However, Labor looks more organised and polished in the early days of the campaign.

The Coalition is leading the rural policy race, having announced $300 million for a country bridge renewal program and $1 billion for a Regional Education fund.

And the Nationals are privately confident they've convinced the Liberals to go with them on zonal taxation.

This could be a great policy - country people would pay less tax than city residents, to provide incentive to live in the regions.

However, the Nationals are hamstrung by other Liberal policies, including those on managed investment schemes.

The Nationals have been vocal in their opposition to MIS but the Liberal policy is the one that counts should the Coalition win government, as the Liberals are pro-MIS.

The only clear anti-MIS options are the Greens or anti-MIS independents.

Meanwhile, the over-use of catch-phrases is already annoying.

PM Julia Gillard managed to say "moving forward" 45 times in total on Saturday.

Obviously, Labor wouldn't want voters glancing over their shoulders, given they would see a bunch of knives in the body of Australia's most popular PM courtesy of the NSW right-wing faction.

But the repetition is patronising.

Voters are smart enough to get the point inside the first 20 times the PM made it.

"Great big new tax" and "working families" are equally overused phrases while "Stand up for Australia. Stand up for real action" seems to indicate Liberal strategists couldn't decide which of their uninteresting slogans to go with and so decided to combine them.

  • Leslie White is The Weekly Times national affairs writer