Joe Hildebrand: Strap on the boxing gloves, Albanese and Dutton — this election debate is going to get feisty
Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton are preparing for the first election debate — and they’d better be prepared for anything, writes Joe Hildebrand.
Analysis
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Strap on the boxing gloves and crank up “Eye of the Tiger”: It’s Debate Day.
For the first time in this campaign the two leaders will go head-to-head, facing off against each other — and the public — at the Sky News People’s Forum in Western Sydney tonight.
If Budget Day is Canberra Christmas for political nerds, election debates are State of Origin: Knock-down, drag-out gladiatorial combat that is won in part by felling your opponent and in part by getting the crowd on side.
The town hall format of the People’s Forum makes it even more exciting because instead of getting questions from press gallery journos it is questions from 100 members of the public who have what is probably a once in a lifetime chance to personally confront the future prime minister about what matters most to them.
And this is where the Rocky montage is needed: They are almost impossible to prep for.
Regular debate “gotcha” questions from a moderator — I once was one! — are now so predictable you could set your watch to them: What is the unemployment rate or interest rate? How much is a loaf of bread or a litre of milk or a litre of petrol? Legend has it John Howard famously carried a magic bit of paper with the answers to such existential questions.
Likewise questions from a panel of press gallery journos are often more about demonstrating their policy expertise than the candidates.
But when regular punters take the floor anything is possible. Questions can range from heartbreaking personal struggle, to local issues that layers of governments have ignored for years, to big basic questions on fundamental values and beliefs.
“What is a woman?” I’d have an answer ready for that one!
Thus a leader might be asked by a mother with a disabled daughter why she has failed to get NDIS funding or grilled by a small business owner struggling to stay afloat or berated by someone whose neighbour stole their cat.
This makes it the most interesting, insightful and exciting style of “debate” and it comes with a verdict at the end, with the 100 undecided voters revealing in a secret ballot who won the day — which usually pre-empts the election result. So don’t miss it!
Another thing you couldn’t miss if you tried is Peter Dutton at a petrol station. Dutto has been hitting up servos in a giant fuel tanker to remind motorists of his plan to slash petrol excise. Wait until the discount kicks in before you fill up that one Pete!
The crowd pleaser is at least one of the few Coalition policies left standing over the past 48 hours.
In fact, so emboldened was Anthony Albanese by the Coalition’s backflips yesterday that he briefly brought Jacinta Allen out of suspended animation to wheel her around Melbourne before she went back in the cryogenic freezer for the rest of the campaign.
Such is the state of play today, which means that tonight is vitally important for Dutton. It’s his best and possibly only real chance to reset the election narrative and regain much needed momentum.
Ding ding!
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Originally published as Joe Hildebrand: Strap on the boxing gloves, Albanese and Dutton — this election debate is going to get feisty
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