It's the economy stupid, but let's not talk about it

TONY Abbott's refusal to give Julia Gillard a second leaders' debate during this election campaign may turn out to be a serious mistake.

It exposes his attempt to win the prime ministership on the back of Labor's failures instead of his own credentials.

On the eve of the first (and it would now seem only) debate, I wrote an opinion piece for the Sunday papers condemning Gillard for not promising to do more debates. I felt that it was disingenuous of her to claim when becoming Prime Minister that she wanted to give Australians a chance to get to know her in the top job and then limit the number of debates.

It is therefore only appropriate I now turn that attack on Abbott for listening to his spin doctors instead of his own political instincts and choosing to cower away from the sort of scrutiny a debate allows.

Certainly Abbott is correct when he identifies that Gillard only changed her mind on having a second debate because her campaign is in trouble.

But that is no reason to deny the public a chance to evaluate our leaders side-by-side one more time, especially as the theme Gillard wants debated is the all important running of the economy, a theme opinion polls tell us Liberals should welcome debating.

Newspoll shows that voters favour the Coalition over Labor as the better economic managers by 47 to 35 per cent. But 14 per cent of voters remain uncommitted and that is the sample Gillard is looking to win over by calling for a debate specifically on the economy.

If Abbott goes on to narrowly lose this election, the moment he refused a second debate targeted on economic stewardship will go down as the moment he gave up the initiative.

It will count as the point in time when the Coalition revealed itself as a government in exile, thinking it could slide back into power without really putting itself up for proper scrutiny as a new team looking for a fresh mandate.

If the Coalition manages to win a close campaign, which oppositions rarely do (governments have won nine of the 10 closest elections since World War II), strategic hats will have to go off to the Abbott minders who encouraged him not to debate for a second time.

The irony that Abbott, the man who has been railing against the "faceless men" of Labor, will have his own faceless men to thank for shielding him from the scrutiny of a debate would push Australian politics to a new low in the election's aftermath.

That said, many Australians would quite understandably feel a new low had been reached if this government won re-election after the way it has managed the nation.

Compare Abbott's refusal to show up for a second debate to his mentor John Howard's willingness to have three debates against a desperate prime minister Paul Keating in 1996. Sure Howard went on to only give his opponents one debate at each election when he was prime minister, but when Howard was opposition leader and well ahead in the polls he welcomed the scrutiny debates offered and the chance to attack the Keating government's record.

He wanted the platform debates give to press his case for becoming prime minister. The second debate (superficially at least) exposed Keating as out of touch when he couldn't say how much it cost to purchase a loaf of bread.

If Abbott is so convinced the Rudd-Gillard government has been a bad one -- a position that isn't all that hard to arrive at frankly -- he should fight to get as many debates with the new PM as he possibly can. Instead he will have to fight off continual questions from journalists about why he won't debate a Prime Minister he believes deserves to lose her job.

In time the public is likely to start variously viewing the refusal to debate as: front runner arrogance; fear of losing the argument; fear of debating the issue Gillard wants debated (the economy); or all three.

If it wasn't for the distraction that is Kevin Rudd, Abbott's refusal to debate would already be a dominant issue. The third scenario, fear of debating the economy, is the way Labor is casting its attacks on Abbott, drawing together a Reserve Bank announcement during the week that interest rates will remain on hold (keeping them lower than when Howard left office) with international comparisons that Australia's debt is low, and concerns over the Coalition's ability to pay for its campaign spending commitments.

Abbott's unwillingness to debate Gillard on the economy is the crucial link Labor needs to give its claims about economic management deficiencies in the Coalition more credibility. It allows them to highlight Abbott's traditional disinterest in economics, raised by none other than Peter Costello (and Abbott himself), as the reason he won't do the debate.

That Costello has previously raised doubts about what sort of treasurer Abbott might make certainly limits Abbott's ability to point to the Howard-Costello years as a marker of how he would handle the economy if elected prime minister.

What makes it so disappointing not getting to see our two leaders fight it out on the economy in a debate -- apart from the fact economic management is the central role of a federal government -- is that both sides have a strong argument they could mount to win voters over.

Yes, Labor got us through the global financial crisis and avoided a recession with its stimulus spending. But as the Coalition points out, the management of that spending has been poor and its value low.

Yes, our net debt remains small by international standards at just over 6 per cent of GDP compared with many other western nations where debt is approaching 100 per cent of GDP. But that is in large part because Australia entered the GFC with no net debt thanks to the fiscal prudence (and the mining boom) during the Howard years.

Yes, Labor has put a 2 per cent cap on spending growth for future budgets, but its Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner is retiring at this election and he is widely regarded as having been Labor's best first-term steward of the economy (and Gillard has as yet refused to name his replacement).

A debate on the economy would be a valuable spectacle for undecided voters at this election.

Watch Peter van Onselen interview the Minister for Infrastructure and Leader of the House, Anthony Albanese, live on Sky News Saturday Agenda at 8:15am. The interview will also be available on The Australian's website, after the telecast: www.theaustralian.com.au.