Online Aunty walks only on left side of the street

But while Tony Abbott's 2010 campaign will be remembered as the most successful by a first-term opposition in 79 years - and, conversely, Julia Gillard's the least successful by a government - all of this seems to have eluded the chosen opinion holders at the ABC. I monitored both sites throughout the campaign. Here's the tally. Negative comments: Gillard, 327; Abbott, 353. Positive comments: Gillard, 197; Abbott, 65. In short, while Gillard and Abbott received roughly the same amount of criticism, Gillard was praised three times more often.

From the first week, articles published at these websites informed us that "Changing leaders has done no damage to Labor's chances at all because Tony Abbott is unelectable and his party is a rabble"; that cabinet meetings involving Abbott would be a "freak show" and the leader a "shameless political operator".

Marieke Hardy told us it was likely he would be "stupid enough to go strolling about the streets wearing nothing but his swimmers and a vaguely predatory leer". Bob Ellis chimed in to say Abbott should be asked about causing the premature death of asbestos-related diseases campaigner Bernie Banton.

Abbott started slowly in campaigning, but it seemed unlikely the tenor of the negative comments - running against him by about five to one at ABC online - could be easily justified.

Week two was the week of the leaks. Abbott performed well in the debate and by the weekend some polls put him in a winning position. This, you might think, would be reflected at the online opinion sites of our national broadcaster. In fact, in the week when it was revealed Gillard might not have been entirely truthful about her support for parental leave, her positive mentions doubled. Amazingly, the ABC published an item praising Gillard's announcement of a citizens assembly on climate change, somehow uncovering the only person other than Gillard known to think that "Boganhagen" would be a good idea.

Positive comment for Abbott came in otherwise negative stories: "It should be clear by now that the trend is towards the Coalition. That's despite anything they've done." But for every grudging bit of praise, Abbott was attacked many times over: "To be fair to Tony, he is a genuinely strange-looking man" and "Personally I'm of the firm belief that [Abbott's] personality is born of the loins of Satan, but it's still a personality regardless."

With the entry of Mark Latham and the advent of "Real Julia", Labor's campaign rapidly turned to farce, but we were told Gillard was "shrewd, tough and intelligent and with a modest manner". One writer followed her on the campaign trail, saying there was a "real buzz around her". Whether there was a buzz around Abbott we are yet to find out; none of them followed him on the hustings. Another concluded that the insulation scheme, which led to four deaths and wasted billions of dollars, "actually achieved some very successful outcomes in terms of retro-fitting Australian homes".

In the week of the Rooty Hill debate the ABC appeared to abandon any pretence of providing balanced opinion on its websites. Gillard and her campaign were praised 93 times - more than Abbott during the entire campaign, while he was showered with criticism. There was not a single online opinion article where a conservative substantially criticised Gillard or praised Abbott that week and at least 17 articles on the other side of the ledger.

Interestingly, the ineptitude of Labor's campaign seemed to have an inverse relationship to the rapturous reception at ABC's online opinion.

During this period, as an experiment, I submitted some comments: "To be fair to Julia, she is a genuinely strange-looking woman" and "She took a married man from his children and is likely to treat her country no better." These comments, created by substituting Gillard's name for Abbott and making small alterations to sentences that contributors had already published, were rejected by the moderators.

Unsurprisingly, an analysis of ABC online's election campaign coverage shows an enormous bias to the Left with an over-representation of policies held by the Greens.

I like to think that the work of the commentariat - or, as Kim Beazley Sr famously put it, the dregs of the middle class - contributed to Gillard's disastrous campaign, seducing her into believing that Abbott was unelectable. These assumptions came crashing down at Rooty Hill where, away from ABC land, the Prime Minister finally came face to face with people whose opinions really mattered.

Gavin Atkins writes The ShadowLands blog on www.asiancorrespondent.com.