Personally, I would guess that Gillard's secrecy and lack of consultation with labor caucus could be linked to some possible necessity to keep her planned move secret from Rudd and his supporters...
It makes very little sense to announce an election date 8 months or so in advance unless you are desperate to head off some building internal strife/conflict and to try to keep internal opponents off balance while you buy some time...
Anyway I doubt that Tony Abbott and the liberal party will fall for what seems to be a "now let us see your policies in full so we can cherry-pick what we like and destroy the rest" trick and I tend to think that it will continue pretty much business as usual until a few weeks before the planned election...
