Not so fast. According to the Australian Electoral Commission, the earliest date for the next election is August 3 next year. The latest is November 30. There is no requirement to hold the election after exactly three years. However the Opposition Leader's motive in making this new demand is to be seen as the one who is driving the agenda.

He wants to force the PM to follow his timeline. Good luck with that.

We can expect him to start saying in earnest, from early next year, that the government is ''running scared'' because it refuses to hold the election at the time of his bidding.

It is quite likely that shock jocks - and nutters on the internet - will take up this chant, with alacrity, in their collective rush to find another way to deride the PM. Gillard could decide to hold the election in early spring next year but more likely, if she follows convention, it will be a few months later.

She held the last election amid finals fever, when she decided that she just really had to ask voters to endorse her legitimacy after the shock leadership coup. And what a disaster that was. It was seen as one of Gillard's worst judgment calls.

Two years later, and quite a few stumbles on, is it possible she is getting her act together, finally? Or is it too late for Labor?

The frenetic activity at the moment appears to be ''clearing the decks'', but not necessarily for an August 2013 election. The more likely scenario is Gillard recognises that she must get some clear air and build a new narrative, particularly to be ready as the election year opens.

Voters appear to have short memories for cash hand-outs but good retention of her mistakes. So the obvious challenge for Labor is to build a credible campaign, in order to limit the electoral damage in defeat or, possibly, to scrape over the line. In the current burst of activity, developments are being put before the nation on several issues - education, carbon tax, asylum seekers and dental health. Labor hopes they will become the winners that help it claw back electoral ground. Some progress has been made in the polls.

The latest Nielson poll shows support for federal Labor inching up. A significant finding was that Gillard has edged ahead of Abbott as preferred prime minister.

With Parliament in recess for this fortnight, both sides will be closely watching the next set of figures, due out early in the week. Labor hopes they will confirm an upward trend.

Clearly, however, the polls show the Coalition would thrash Labor if an election were held now. But that's not going to happen. Gillard has time to regain the lead, if she can overcome Abbott's persistent campaign of character assassination.

Back in 2010, after she toppled Rudd, Gillard vowed to fix three issues - climate change, the mining tax and asylum seekers. She cited those as the Rudd government's failings. It's taken a long time but now the list on her fridge shows substantial progress on that agenda.

The mining tax is barely rating a mention, despite Abbott's promise that an incoming Coalition government would scrap it.

Asylum seekers continue to sail to Australia in large numbers but the talks over the past few days at the Pacific Islands Forum have gone in Gillard's favour. Australia signed an agreement with Nauru to imprison asylum seekers on the tiny Pacific Island nation, at first in tents and later in the renovated Australian-funded camp.

The recent flood of asylum seekers is a last-ditch attempt by these desperate people to get to Australia before the harsher regime comes. The result is that there have been many more arrivals over the past few weeks than could ever be accommodated in the makeshift site at Nauru, but the symbol of ''tough border protection policies'' will remain.

Australia already has a memo of understanding with Papua New Guinea for the camp at Manus Island, which is also in a serious state of dilapidation. Billions of dollars will go into restoring the detention camps, and that money has to be pulled out of other programs, to maintain the promise of keeping the budget in surplus.

On the third issue, climate change, Gillard has abruptly changed her mind on the carbon tax, just two months after introducing it.

She maintains the tax will fade as a priority issue as Australians' ''lived experience'' does not match up to Abbott's catastrophising. Behind closed doors, she and Greg Combet have been arm wrestling with the Greens. Labor never liked the idea of an unworkable floor price. A carbon price was Greens' policy. Labor wanted an emissions trading scheme.

Now Gillard has achieved a breakthrough with agreement from the Greens to scrap the floor price from 2015 and link the carbon scheme directly to the European carbon price. This backflip follows strong concerns from the energy sector that the floor price was unworkable and would add to costs. The European market is depressed, meaning the price for Australian carbon permits would plunge from almost $30 a tonne to about $12.

Clearly that is a massive hit to government revenue, but it is well outside the envelope of this financial year. But the out years of the budget will be further hit by massively unfunded (so far) commitments in disability services, defence, education and dental health.

Gillard must be prepared to change signature policies, despite strong political opposition, if she is to demonstrate to the nation that she is flexible enough to respond to community demands.

On Monday she will deliver the government's response to the Gonski plan to put federal funding of schools on a needs basis. David Gonski and his committee proposed increased funding of $5 billion a year for schools - government or non-government - according to their numbers of low-income, indigenous, disabled, non-English speaking or remote-area students.

The response was due out a week ago. The independent schools lobby said 3200 schools would lose funding under the proposal. This was despite the government's guarantee earlier that ''no school would lose a dollar''. Gillard quickly responded to the looming scare campaign, promising ''every independent school in Australia will see their funding increase''.

So the legitimate question to be asked on Monday is, where's all the money coming from?

The answer will come when the mid-year health of the budget is revealed, in a few months. Already the government is leaking the possibility of widespread cuts to programs, as it desperately tries to keep the budget in surplus.

Canberra's public servants are easy targets but the rumours of wide-spread cuts have little credibility, given the lack of toughness in previous budgets and rampant use of creative accounting.

Making deep cuts would hurt consumer confidence, damage the surplus by reducing revenue, and consign Labor to defeat, no matter the timing of the election.

Ross Peake is Political Editor

Twitter: @rosspeakeCT