Trading blows but audience has already bolted

This debate really was pointless, staged only two days out from polling day when more than 1.64 million Queenslanders have voted early or requested a postal ballot.

If you were still planning to line up on Saturday and hoped for a steer on who to go for between Annastacia Palaszczuk and Deb Frecklington, good luck. Their ­belated face-off was a case of too little, too late to really matter.

There has been a lot of talk about COVID-19 changing politics for the better and that having two female leaders go at it in a state election might move the dial further. The debate showed it didn’t. Not a jot.

The Premier talked over her opponent repeatedly and ­deserved to be marked down for doing so. Instead, the audience of supposedly uncommitted voters — one was unmasked on social media as, ahem, somewhat sympathetic to the conservative side — scored the debate comfortably to Palaszczuk. She was strongest on the borders issue, with a consistent line on why they had to be shut: nobody wanted Queensland to be Victoria.

Frecklington less so. The LNP Leader struggled to square a position that has shifted from an open door to saying she too would ­accept medical advice to keep the crossings closed, and was nailed by Palaszczuk on the detail of bringing back international ­students. But she turned the tables on Palaszczuk on unemployment, pointing out that Queensland’s jobless rate was higher per capita than Victoria’s despite the ravages of COVID.

Palaszczuk was given the ­opportunity to voice full-throated support for thermal coal and didn’t. Regional voters in the mining belt might mark that down.

Frecklington failed to commit to a renewable energy target.

Palaszczuk zeroed in on the LNP’s election costings, due to be released on Thursday. Six times she demanded that Frecklington describe how she would fund commitments such as the New Bradfield scheme to irrigate the outback and six times the Opposition Leader demurred, saying the numbers would be out soon enough.

It was not quite a Trumpian moment and nor did it floor Frecklington, who generally gave as good as she got. But the leaders’ debate was a lost opportunity for the alternative premier to apply the blowtorch on the government’s poor record on debt, development and jobs.

Palaszczuk cruised through it, just as she is cruising through the election campaign. She was more aggressive and landed the more telling blows.

Round two is Friday but what a shame they didn’t lace up the gloves sooner, when it could have made a difference.