Joe Hildebrand: Channel 9’s leaders’ debate a breakthrough for insomnia

The latest leaders’ debate must surely have come as blessed relief to those for whom whalesong or sleeping tablets just wouldn’t do the trick, writes Joe Hildebrand.

While many voters have found the election campaign underwhelming, there has at least been a breakthrough for any Australians suffering from insomnia: The third leaders’ debate.

This soporific sensation aired on Channel 9 last night and must surely have come as blessed relief to those for whom whalesong or sleeping tablets just wouldn’t do the trick.

Like all man-made disasters — think Victoria’s hotel quarantine scheme — this was both everybody and nobody’s fault at the same time.

The journos involved are some of the best in the country and both leaders performed well.

In fact it was probably Peter Dutton’s strongest debate performance so far, which just makes it all the more a shame that nobody was awake to see it.

Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese during Tuesday night’s leaders’ debate. Picture: Alex Ellinghausen

So what was the problem?

Firstly the format was all wrong. Instead of being positioned between or in front of the two combatants, moderator Ali Langdon was placed between the Dutton and the PM on one side, and the panel of three journos on the other side.

As my friend and colleague Paul Murray exploded on Sky News last night — while I nodded furiously beside him — what on earth was Channel 9 thinking?

The awkward format in question. Picture: Alex Ellinghausen

Television, and especially these debates, is all about directly connecting with the viewers — ie. voters — at home. The audience is the camera.

Murray knows this better than anyone. Every night for 30 minutes or more he speaks directly to his audience, straight down the barrel of the camera, with no autocue. The effect is that you feel while watching that he is talking directly to you.

Nine’s debate, by contrast, was like a livestream of a bunch of people talking to each other. It might as well have been filmed on CCTV.

The debate might as well have been filmed on CCTV — there was no connection to audience. Picture: James Brickwood

The multitude of inquisitors also let the leaders off the hook. Instead of having a single wrangler who was able to challenge their answers, there was a kind of deli queue of interrogators patiently waiting their turn with their number in hand.

Indeed, at one point it was all Langdon could do to beg the leaders to stop just defaulting to their usual boring old talking points.

And despite Dutton being declared the winner by two out of three of the panellists, it came too late from more than half a million voters who had already cast their ballots on day one of prepolls being open.

Dutton was declared the winner by two of three of the panellists. Picture: James Brickwood

I honestly cannot stress enough what a seismic difference the massive number of early votes will make in this campaign and to Australian democracy in general.

By the time the fourth and final debate is broadcast by Channel 7 next week it will be too late for millions of voters and by the time polling day rolls around more than half of all voters may have already irreversibly made up their minds.

Hopefully this will prompt Seven to do what it does best and flick the switch to vaudeville. I want to see a worm, a shark and a bunch of models holding suitcases as Labor and the Greens play Deal or No Deal.

Now that would be worth staying up for!

Originally published as Joe Hildebrand: Channel 9’s leaders’ debate a breakthrough for insomnia