Federal Election 2013 Live: August 22, 2013

The end of another day. I believe it was day 18. What happened?

• last night's community forum gave Labor leader Kevin Rudd a spring in his step (let's stop pretending anyone 'won');
• it was judged such a success that both Mr Rudd and Coalition leader Tony Abbott will participate in another forum next week;
• Mr Rudd spent the day in Victoria prosecuting his case against the Coalition's paid parental leave scheme;
• Mr Abbott spent the day in Sydney where he announced the Coalition's $340 million health policy; and
• Mr Abbott also announced that the Liberal Party will no longer accept donations from tobacco companies.

My thanks to everyone who has read, commented and participated in our live coverage of the campaign so far. It is really a lot of fun to bring it to you. I am so impressed by my co pilots Andrew Meares and Alex Ellinghausen - not a single day off for either of them and still bringing us the best campaign images.

Right, so, we all know Labor wants the Coalition to release its policy costings quick smart while the Coalition says they will be released some time before the campaign ends.

A leading economist, Saul Eslake, has had a look at the figures the Coalition has released so far to estimate the gap between its spends and saves.

His verdict? The Coalition needs to find almost $30 billion more over the four financial years to 2016-17 in order to be able to credibly claim that it would produce better bottom line outcomes than the ones projected by Treasury and the Department of Finance.