Finally, there is a contest. After a shaky first week, Peter Dutton needed to lift. And on Tuesday night he did.
The Liberal leader was assertive, relaxed and came across as a more convincing interlocutor.
The first leaders’ debate was Dutton’s best performance of the campaign and for that reason alone he won the contest, if only by a narrow margin.
Not that Anthony Albanese performed poorly. He didn’t. But Dutton proved for the first time since the election was called that he remains a contender.
The economy, cost of living, energy and housing dominated the questions. The few that Dutton would have found unfriendly were handled competently.
Both leaders presented with confidence, but for the first time in the campaign, the Liberal leader had command of the economic argument.
He was across the detail, was given space to dissect Labor’s energy plans and connected with the audience of undecided voters.
Confidence is the key in campaigns, and Dutton appeared to have found his.
The Prime Minister performed as expected. He is a more polished leader than he was when he first presented to voters at the last election. They were equally matched in this regard. The difference was Dutton.
His rebuttal of Albanese’s claims of Coalition cuts to funding for health and education were dispatched with effectively.
And he delivered the key assertion: that this Labor government is the biggest spending in history.
Albanese scored points by steering the debate back to the Coalition’s now-ditched working-from-home policy when given the opportunity, but was put back on his heels by Dutton when the Prime Minister tried to interrupt his answers. This was a dynamic that Albanese may not have been expecting.
Albanese opened the batting by reeling off Labor’s record in government, with the key indicators of inflation and employment heading in the right direction.
But he admitted that no one can control what happens from here. Thanks to Donald Trump.
This was an invitation for Dutton to present the contrasting story. That the Prime Minister was in denial about the cost-of-living hardship inflicted on households over the past three years. Considering the number of hands that went up among audience members when asked how may had been doing it tough, this found resonance.
This is now a contest of two competing visions for the future, but also starkly different interpretations of the past.
Dutton put Albanese on notice that he will aggressively challenge what he claims is a “dishonesty” in the Labor campaign.
Dutton is now a leader with nothing to lose.
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