Schoolkids love the travelling Rudd show

WITH a flick of his fringe and jaunty little hop, Kevin Rudd is up on stage, arms held high like an aging rocker back for an encore.

Kevin Rudd with students during his visit to Aquinas College

WITH a flick of his fringe and jaunty little hop, Kevin Rudd is up on stage, arms held high like an aging rocker back for an encore.

It's an outdoor show on the almost campaign trail, the audience a thousand schoolyard faces each armed with a mobile phone.

As he uncoils the microphone from its stand like a bureaucratic Bono, the phone cameras snap and the PM beams.

"Guys, are you feeling good?" he croons.

"Yeeeeeeah," scream the good boys and girls of Aquinas College in Ringwood, a Catholic high school in Melbourne's eastern suburbs that Rudd has come to shower in Gonski cash.

With his new resolve to keep the band together, Rudd provides a quick intro for the rest of the group: Bill Shorten on guitar, Parliamentary Secretary for Schools Kelvin Thompson on bass and local MP Mike Symon on drums.

Gracious to a fault, he even leans in to Shorten so the Education Minister can share his microphone. But it is Rudd they have come to see, and more.

"Touch me, Kevin," calls a boy with a mouth full of braces.

Rarely has a political leader had this kind of teenage reaction since Paul Keating was mobbed by school girls. Where Julia Gillard couldn't get through lunchtime without some pimply sod throwing a sandwich at her, Rudd is a maul of selfies and salty slang.

He's been flat out like a lizard drinking, mate, he says to one question about becoming Prime Minister again. "That's a Queensland expression" he tells the befuddled teenager.

The Gonski philosophy, he says, is to ensure all schools are funded according to their needs. What this means for Aquinas, with 1670 students in the marginal electorate of Deakin held by Labor, is close to $7 million in extra funding over the next six years.

"It is new money," he calls out to the crowd.

"We are doing it in every Catholic school in Australia." Gonski, the stage show, coming to a school near you.

It is not just schools that Rudd has come to Melbourne to talk about. He also wants to know what everyone thinks of the birth of the "royal bub".

To mark the occasion, he'll be sending a Mem Fox book and a stuffed bilby to London. Oh, and he has a commemorative comedy routine all worked out.

Rudd: "Have any names come out yet, Bill?"

Shorten: "No, they haven't called it Bill."

Rudd: "I don't think it is going to be Prince Bill or Prince Kevin."

Shorten: "Prince Kevin has a ring to it."

Better yet, just Prince. The artist formerly known as the former PM, has one last thing to say.

"The most important thing, mate, is to get a decent night's sleep. Get up in the morning and do a few more things."

How many sleeps till the election? No time for that now. Gotta zip.