Opinion: Enigmatic approach puts PM on top

IT WAS a close call but Malcolm Turnbull won last night’s debate with an elegantly subtle approach destined to emerge as a blueprint for prosecuting political arguments.

IT WAS a close call but Malcolm Turnbull won last night’s debate with an elegantly subtle approach destined to emerge as a blueprint for prosecuting political arguments.

Silent, unobtrusive, generously allowing Bill Shorten free rein to lay out the Opposition’s agenda, Turnbull’s determination to make himself almost invisible to the audience won admirers within the first five minutes of the contest.

Shorten, to give him his due, was passionate, articulate, inspiring and engagingly persuasive as he laid out Labor’s vision for the nation, putting flesh on the bones of Labor Party policy and opening himself up the scrutiny of the public gaze.

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But Turnbull’s enigmatic approach won the night as he effortlessly seduced the audience by saying nothing, promising nothing, explaining nothing and not being there.

Turnbull’s approach carried suggestions of a political Marcel Marceau as he skilfully exploited voter disenchantment with politicians, allowing the audience to project its own emotions onto the debate.

A master of mime, he didn’t need to appear in physical form to project the raised eyebrow, the questioning sideways glance, the rolling of the eyes upwards to the ceiling as he obliterated Shorten’s arguments.

By the fulltime whistle had blown the jury was in, with the Turnbull camp’s strategy of spending the night in Sydney talking to Leigh Sales on the 7.30 Report the clear winner.

We can’t help but paraphrase the words of British wartime PM Winston Churchill as we gaze at ours in a new light: “Never in the field of political conflict has a member for parliament said so much by saying so little to so many.’’

Originally published as Opinion: Enigmatic approach puts PM on top