Federal election 2016: the verdict on who won the day

The election campaign needed an energy boost. It got a sedative instead.

After three weeks of warming up, Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten are now at the point when a normal election campaign might start, with about five weeks to go to the July 2 polling day. Instead of picking up the pace on Monday, however, they both seemed to slow down. The effect of the leaders’ debate on Sunday night — when both men played it safe with their sound bites — was to send the campaign into a slowdown.

Shorten campaigned in Cairns, trying to toss Liberal MP Warren Entsch out of his seat, by announcing a $500 million fund to tackle the impact of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef. Turnbull was in western Sydney where he announced $4.6m for 12 school programs to promote science and technology. The program, called P-Tech, is modelled on a similar scheme in the US that Tony Abbott brought to Australia, as told here

There was no shortage of colour. Turnbull patted a pet rat at a shopping centre in Penrith, chatted to voters on the long train ride from Central Station and hugged an elderly lady who cried when she met him. Shorten visited the reef and was buoyed by Newspoll results that showed he was getting the better of the government.

Turnbull made a significant statement on same sex marriage: that a plebiscite on the issue would be held before the end of the year if the Coalition stayed in government. It was confirmation that Australians will go back to the ballot box within months, although the rules for the plebiscite are still a mystery.

Nothing happened to galvanise debate on Monday — and there were no fireworks from Sunday night to keep sputtering the following day. The best line from Shorten against Turnbull on the night — “I genuinely lead my party whereas your party genuinely leads you’’ – was not even original. Here is Tony Blair from 1995 with a similar attack on John Major, but delivered more succinctly:

Nova Peris, meanwhile, had a more serious attack to confront. Peris, who is not contesting the election after a term as Labor senator for the Northern Territory, took on racist abuse on social media two days ago. Thousands backed her response to vile posts from Chris Nelson, a member of the Liberal Party in NSW. Peris was all class in her response to his taunts: “You must have had a terrible life Chris to continue as an adult spitting such racist and vile hatred towards a fellow human being.” Peris left the post on her Facebook page to show what she called “the ugly side of this country”. The NSW Police issued a statement on Monday saying they had charged a NSW central coast man for offensive social media posts. The NSW Liberal Party confirmed it had expelled Nelson from the party.

Who won the day? Nova Peris, of course. The humdrum contest between Turnbull and Shorten was another draw.