"There are some weeks that go well, some that go badly - people make a judgment over time." 

After two cabinet leaks in one week, Rudd's petrol policy, centerpiece of which is Fuelwatch, is looking worse for wear.

"This is just one small part of a long term strategy," Rudd said on Sunrise, defending the plan.

Rudd also claimed that he is entitled to ignore the opinions of government departments who disagreed with the Fuelwatch scheme.

Finding good advice 

"There is an organisation called the ACCC," said Rudd. "It is also there paid for by the Government to provide advice. It's the only Government agency which has done the economic modeling on that and they gave us a 300 page report with modeling in it which said in Perth over a seven year examination it led to a 2 cents a litre reduction."

"[They said] this arrangement, applied nationally, will not produce any upward pressure on fuel prices."

"There's a whole lot of other factors out there affecting the global fuel price. We know about those. But your question is what advice do we take? We took the advice of the competition watchdog, a report commissioned by Peter Costello back in 2007."

"At the time he said it was the most responsible agency to advise."

"If all that evidence went out in the public domain we would be attacked for not proceeding with FuelWatch. That is why we did it."

Is the honeymoon over?

"The business of being a national political leader there are weeks that go well and some that go well. People make judgments over time."

Hardworking ethic

"One of the criticisms is that we are working too hard. If you are elected to form the Government and you have a big program of change trying to make a difference on the big things like urban transport, how do you fix the university system, and hospitals."

"I do believe in burning the midnight oil. I make no apology for that."