Joe Hildebrand: Most profound moment of the first leaders’ debate
Amid all the lights and cameras, amid all the prepping and drilling, both leaders knew there was only one way to win the debate, writes Joe Hildebrand.
As 100 voters, an army of staffers, a heaving press pack, and a forest of cameras waited primed for the first clash between Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton in this election campaign, a strange sound floated in through an open window.
It was kids playing footy outside at the Wenty Leagues Club in the heart of Western Sydney, and it was almost surreally foreign in the highly curated and highly charged stage that was set for the two leaders.
A rushed TV technician walking past stopped as if to inhale it.
“The sound of normal,” he said. “This is normal.”
It was perhaps the most profound statement of the night: Amid all the lights and cameras, amid all the prepping and drilling, the one goal for both leaders was to connect with the ordinary people gathered in the audience — even as the most ordinary people were playing footy outside.
The Prime Minister began, as prime ministers tend to do, with a snapshot of the state of the nation. He painted a nice picture but it was very big picture in a forum that tends to reward the personal over the political.
The Opposition Leader by contrast talked about the experience of households and families. Instead of the headline rate of CPI he talked about the price at the supermarket checkout.
But as questions began to flow from the audience Albanese loosened up considerably while Dutton was put on the defensive by a couple of early questions that were firmly on Labor’s home turf.
The first, from a public schoolteacher called Monica, may as well have been a gift from God.
Another from a father worried about the impact of foreign student cuts on university funding was also pure Labor territory. With luck like that Albanese should probably chuck a pineapple through the pokies on the way out.
In this sense the debate began the way the campaign did, with the PM staking out the field of battle and Dutton on the defensive.
He claimed the Coalition had cut health funding, which was called out by the Liberal leader — a former Health Minister — as a lie.
“That is not a factually correct statement,” Dutton objected. “I think it’s dishonest.”
And so there was a back and forth about whether the Coalition had in fact cut health spending. Is that really what Dutton wanted to waste precious minutes on?
Fortunately, the Opposition Leader was able to get back on the offensive with a deft manoeuvre, in which he followed up a question from a woman that confirmed she in fact did have to use her credit card as well as her Medicare card when seeing the doctor.
And as the debate turned to migration it was Dutton’s turn to play a home game. He had open backing for his plan to stop foreigners buying Australian housing from audience member Janine, who asked why he didn’t go even further.
This time Albanese was able to disarm the issue. How? By asking about her grandkids.
And that’s how these nights are won. Connecting with real people and showing you are one of them.
Originally published as Joe Hildebrand: Most profound moment of the first leaders’ debate
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