No knockout, but Shorten wins audience in first debate

Neither leader landed a knock-out blow in an hour-long TV debate last night.

Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten during the first leaders’ forum last night. Picture: Channel Seven

Scott Morrison has warned voters they can’t afford the cost of changing to Labor’s big climate, health and education policies, while Bill Shorten argued they couldn’t afford­ not to change, citing low wage growth and declining international rankings in health and education.

In a robust debate in Perth last night, the Prime Minister attacked the Opposition Leader for un­answered questions on key policies­, including the cost of climate­ change, while Mr Shorten attacked “tax loopholes’’ for high-income earners and the Coalition preference deal with Clive Palmer.

Neither leader landed a knockout blow in an hour-long exchange which saw Mr Shorten laugh and smirk at Mr Morrison as he attacked Labor’s franking credits­ policy over its impact on self-managed super funds held by retirees. Mr Morrison appeared nervous as he pressed the Oppos­ition Leader to answer questions on the cost of key Labor policies.

An audience of 48 undecided voters handed the debate to Mr Shorten, with 25 declaring the Oppositio­n Leader the winner while 12 gave it to Mr Morrison. Eleven remained undecided.

Mr Morrison spruiked the governme­nt’s economic credentials as he opened the debate declaring the Coalition had delivered a stronger economy, lowered unemployment and brought the budget back to surplus after 12 years.

“The election will be close,’’ the Prime Minister said. “It is a choice between myself and Mr Shorten.’’ The Coalition would keep the economy strong. Labor would weaken it, he said.

Mr Shorten argued Labor was optimistic about the future, and had a united and stable team.

He said Labor wanted the “world’s best’’ education system, would cap private health insur­ance fees and wanted to take real action on climate change. “None of this can happen if we keep the same government in power.’’

Hitting back at Mr Morrison’s strong economy argument, Mr Shorten declared that one million Australians were working two jobs to make ends meet and another million were unemployed.

Labor wanted to put middle Australia back on top.

In one of the most robust exchanges­ of the debate, Mr Morriso­n accused Mr Shorten of misleading voters on his policy of ending franking credit refunds for people who did not pay tax.

“People have planned their retirement based on getting access to what have been legal franking credit rebates,” Mr Morrison said.

“These figures on average are about $1200 per person affected and for someone in a self-managed super fund it could be around $12,000.”

“Wow,” Bill Shorten replied sarcastically.

“He says ‘wow’ as if it doesn’t matter to somebody. It is a big deal, Bill. People have worked hard to set themselves up to be self-funded in retirement,” Mr Morrison said.

Mr Morrison also attacked Mr Shorten’s record on penalty rates when he was the Australian Workers Union secretary over the Clean­event incident, where the union traded away penalty rates.

But Mr Shorten turned the ­attack on Mr Morrison over his preference deal with Clive Palmer, who left workers out of pocket when he closed his Queensland Nickel refinery.