Does anyone actually watch leaders’ debates? Well, apart from us political tragics, of course. Whether they have any real affect on an election outcome is a matter of debate. As is, invariably, who wins them, unless one candidate turns into a drooling carcass right in front of the cameras. As if that would ever happen.
Unfortunately for anyone hoping for some entertainment value from the first leaders’ debate of this Australian election, neither candidate’s brain checked out mid-broadcast. So, as usual, who won it mostly seems to depend on which candidate you were backing in the first place.
Not surprisingly, then, the Australian awarded the debate to Peter Dutton. The left-wing Age and ABC? Interestingly, they were far more subdued. The ABC’s uber white-woman lefty (is there any other kind, in the Ultimo Sheltered Workshop?) called it a draw. So did two of the three Age pundits. Only one was prepared to award it to Anthony Albanese.
At best, the left-media agreed, neither of them fucked it up. At least Albo didn’t fall off the stage, ABC’s Annabel Crabb sighed with relief.
The short answer? Everybody fulfilled their KPIs.
The prime minister looked relaxed and didn’t blather. The opposition leader – who in the hours before the debate took yet another body blow with the news his 79-year-old dad, Bruce, had been hospitalised – did not exhibit the slightest sign of panic […]
If you were viewing this debate as a visiting alien, you’d likely call it a draw.
You can almost hear her teeth grinding, as Crabb concedes:
If you were weighting the event in terms of stress and expectation, you’d say that Dutton did well.
This was the crucial point, of course. Dutton’s first-week campaign got off to a shocker start. Screwing up the debate would have been an almost fatal weakness.
Anthony Albanese ensured that all Labor’s themes – from a Medicare scare and nuclear dump – were paraded in his first head-to-head contest, with Peter Dutton responding with cost-of-living concerns and declarations of the need for safety and security in “precarious times”.
Importantly, neither leader made any mistake and there was no stumble.
But, and this was important for the Opposition Leader who desperately needed to avoid any error or setback that would have lost him more momentum, Dutton appeared more confident and assertive.
At the moment of truth, Dutton delivered, knowing that his campaign would stall completely if he failed in this debate.
Dutton was more prepared to engage the audience in Western Sydney and challenge the prime minister over questions of fact.
Albanese, on the other hand, has been left to cruise to a slight poll lead. But, as decades of election campaigns prove, Labor always starts strong and then goes backwards as the campaign progresses. Albanese had to do better than just not fall off the stage: he needed to land a killer blow – and conspicuously failed.
Albanese opened the batting by reeling off Labor’s record in government […]
This was an invitation for Dutton to present the contrasting story. That the Prime Minister was in denial about the cost-of-living hardship inflicted on households over the past three years. Considering the number of hands that went up among audience members when asked how may had been doing it tough, this found resonance.
Then there are the bomb-throwers in the campaign that Albanese will be desperately hoping to avoid: the Greens.
There was little levity, except when Albanese assured voters there would be “no deals” with the Greens in the event of minority government – this caused Dutton to crack a smile.
Nobody seriously believes that Albanese wouldn’t fall over himself to do a deal with the Greens, in the event of a hung parliament. Which would mean he would, like Julia Gillard in 2010, capitulate to whatever extreme demands the loony left make.
Adam Bandt will issue an election ransom note to Anthony Albanese demanding capital gains and negative gearing tax breaks be axed and that a blanket freeze on rent increases be imposed in return for the Greens’ support in a hung parliament.
‘A vote for Albanese is a vote for the Greens’ is a line that Labor will come to dread.
