The Independent Australian

  Alan Fitzgerald is a long time member of the Press Club. He found the debate dispiriting.

   The leaders debate at the National Press Club on Sunday between PM Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was a dull affair that failed to excite either commentators or the voters.

  Both leaders were competent but not willing to engage in the usual robust debate that is a feature of Australian elections. Avoiding mistakes on this one and only head to head debate seemed the priority rather than revealing policies. The result was a bland, mundane monologue about each other’s potential to lead the next government

   Julia Gillard was smooth and articulate even if her content was somewhat light on detail.  She was also rather condescending towards Tony Abbott.
   Abbott came across like a muzzled dog on a chain. You could see he wanted to bark if not bite but was held back. 
  Obviously his handlers had warned him to behave and not be seen to be hard on the female Prime Minister. This is probably wise but surely a female prime minister should not get any special treatment. She is in politics after all and is no shrinking violet.

  The whole exercise was too polite and even the questions from the journalists’ panel were tame and did not generate either light no heat. Malcolm Farr, Daily Telegraph, Sydney, seemed out of his depth as he struggled to articulate his questions. Despite the moderator's attempts to get them to answer the question, mostly the leaders answered their own question. Based on the panel and the leaders performances, one debate like this is more than enough.

  At the start, the leaders outlined their positions on a range of issues on the economy, a regional refugee reception centre, climate change, health and education. 

  The Prime Minister Julia Gillard focused on ‘looking forward’ to the things her government could do in the next three years, not wishing to dwell on her role as Deputy Prime Minister to the deposed PM Kevin Rudd.

    Opposition Leader Tony Abbott spent most of his time in making connections between the outgoing Rudd Government and Julia Gillard, saying her government was economically incompetent and his government would pay off debt, promote growth, cut taxes and ‘turn back the boats’.

    Abbott scored best on the issue of asylum seekers. He claimed the proposed reception centre at East Timor would never go ahead because both the Indonesians and the East Timorese did not want it. He said Ms Gillard only had to pick up the phone and talk to the President of Nauru who as willing and able to provide a reception centre now. PM Gillard said talks with the East Timor Government were ongoing and she would not accept Nauru’s offer.

   On climate change, PM Gillard made no commitment in the short term but sought consensus on the issue from the people promising to set up a 150 strong ‘Peoples Assembly’ to discuss the matter by 2013. Opposition leader Abbott said Australia already had a people’s assembly– it was called the Parliament.  He predicted that the Gillard government would succumb to pressure from the Greens in the Senate and put a price on carbon emissions.

     The debate was destined to disappoint because it has been held before either party officially launches its campaign for the election to be held on 21 August. The campaign launches are not likely to be held until next week – after candidate nominations close for the election on 29 July. Once the official policies of each party are revealed then the leaders will have something to really debate.