It's the political version of a double-feature.
Two blockbuster events, two lead actors - and much at stake.
A special COAG leaders' retreat hosted by Tony Abbott in Sydney on Wednesday and Thursday will test the prime minister's ability to forge a new era of co-operation with the states and territories.
An ALP national conference for three days in Melbourne will test Bill Shorten's ability to forge unity and a renewed sense of purpose within Labor before a federal election in 2016.
It's hard to say who has the tougher job.
Abbott made "co-operative federalism" an election pledge.
He has the benefit of conservative allies in Western Australia, NSW, Tasmania and the Northern Territory.
He is also in a stronger position politically than he was earlier in the year, and a Newspoll early next week is expected to confirm this.
On the agenda will be the vexed issue of tax reform - the core of which is where the money is going to come from to pay for schools, hospitals, roads and other services over coming decades.
The government's taxation white paper flags the idea of raising the rate or broadening the base of the GST, which could bring in billions more in revenue for the states.
But the chances of a deal on this are remote, given the toxic nature of the GST political debate.
A more realistic outcome could be a roadmap to tax reform, involving the states dumping some of their more inefficient taxes and getting their budget houses in order as the federal government reviews the way it funds services.
The South Australian government has already suggested road user charging could be trialled, to try to wind back fuel excise and rego fees.
The ACT government is trying to ween itself off inefficient stamp duties.
If the prime minister can get commitments from all the states and territories to at least baby-steps to reform - and an acknowledgement that some self-interest must be set aside for the greater national good - the retreat will have been worthwhile.
Bill Shorten has an equally complex task.
He is the party's third leader in just over three years and has the task of unifying a party in time to defeat a first-term government.
His Right faction has a slight numerical edge on the floor of the national conference over the Left, but won't have an absolute majority of votes.
His job will be to ensure that the party puts forward a platform which can be realistically sold to the electorate while upholding Labor's core values.
The two trickiest policy issues will be tackling people-smuggling and climate change.
Some within the party don't want a millimetre of daylight between Labor and the coalition on "stopping the boats", as it is electorally popular.
Others say mandatory detention and offshore processing is a breach of Australia's UN obligations and should be dumped in favour of a community-based system.
The best result for Shorten will be a broadly-worded statement in the party's platform which gives him scope to develop a "tough but fair" policy for the election.
A leaked discussion paper on climate this week caused Labor headaches as the government resurrected the carbon tax attack and accused Shorten of being a "carbon copy" of his predecessors.
However, voters expect Labor to take a more comprehensive approach to cutting carbon emissions than the coalition and most in the party accept this is a positive edge to have over the government.
Shorten's challenge will be to ensure the carbon tax is "dead, buried and cremated".
Labor faithful are likely to be disappointed with their leader's approach to internal reform.
He is expected to move that party members don't have to also be members of an affiliated union.
But any changes beyond that, such as plebiscites for upper house candidate selection and grass-roots election of conference delegates, might not get the nod.
The upside to both political events is that voters will get to see their leaders doing what they were elected to do - lead.
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