Federal election 2016: Who won the Facebook leaders’ debate?

Bill Shorten got the better of Malcolm Turnbull in the nation’s first Facebook leaders’ debate by using clever tactics.

Bill Shorten got the better of Malcolm Turnbull in the nation’s first Facebook leaders’ debate by using clever tactics and an aggressive message to win the moment.

The “Facebook face-off” was meant to work for the Prime Minister but it showed again that he can be outmanoeuvred by his rival.

Where Turnbull offered extended answers on deep policy, Shorten cut to the chase with sharper responses – such as a commitment to a minimum student funding guarantee of $10,800 per student at university, something that could appeal to the online audience more easily than the Coalition’s stalled deregulation. As well, Shorten used a question about politicians’ perks to change the subject to superannuation and then hammer the government for slowing down the increase in compulsory super from 9 to 12 per cent of salaries.

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Shorten did not have a compelling policy message. His vow to “save Medicare” is based on a deliberate confusion about the government’s examination of the sale of the Medicare payment system – a Labor claim that is like equating an EFTPOS terminal to a supermarket. And when Shorten was picked up on Labor’s false claims about the speedy economic dividend from his ten-year school funding boost, he relied on the old tactic of blaming the media.

“It’s been run in some conservative elements of the media that somehow investing in education doesn’t provide a dividend. Yes it does – every day,” Shorten said. Yes, he was referring to The Australian – which never claimed that spending on education did not lead to growth but instead questioned Shorten’s exaggerated claims about the speed and scale of the gain. You can see our coverage here.

In a key moment of the debate, Shorten responded to a question on unemployment by promising the audience a better national broadband network under Labor, drawing Turnbull away from the discussion on economic policy. Turnbull told the audience that 2.6 million Australians could now get the NBN and that the government had connected more paying customers in the last month than Labor did in six years.

True, perhaps, but beside the point. Turnbull had wandered away from his economic message on jobs and was now exposed to a Labor attack. In an online format, with plenty of younger viewers, the audience was naturally skewed towards those wanting faster download speeds. At this point Shorten asked online viewers to click “like” to show their support for Labor’s plan to lay more fibre cable to homes and speed up the NBN. He drew a steady stream of support.

Did any of this matter? On a Friday night on the internet, who would be watching? The online audience was 12,400 at the height of the debate but 11,600 towards the end. It was also broadcast on Sky News and ABC News 24 but the overall audience was tiny. A political interview on prime-time television can gain more than 500,000 viewers.

In the audience verdict, 17 declared Shorten the winner while 7 voted for Turnbull and the rest (6 people) were undecided. This vote is a farce, of course. Why anyone should take notice of a tiny audience in a Sydney television studio is a mystery, yet that ballot inevitably shapes coverage of the event. The unavoidable fact about leaders’ debates is that the post-debate spin is now crucial because more people read about the debate after the event than watch it at the time. Why watch for an hour when you can catch up in a minute?

Shorten badly needed a win in the Facebook face-off. He has made up no ground at all this week. The costings disaster of a week ago, when he backed down in his “fairness” crusade in the face of budget reality, was a serious setback for the Labor campaign and has widened Turnbull’s lead. Shorten is on track to win seats without winning government on July 2 and needs a dramatic escalation in his campaign to change that prospect.

Whatever the outlook for the next two weeks, though, the short-term verdict is clear.

Who won the day? Shorten.