Opposition Kim Beazley won the debate against Prime Minister John Howard on Sunday night. This is according to the usual media commentator group, and, more importantly, according to a group of 80 uncommitted voters who were in a Channel Nine studio audience who voted Mr Beazley the victor 67-33.
The debate itself will probably not amount to much come election time in four weeks. However, it ahs changed the election dynamic in several important ways. First, a lot of the media will now see Mr Beazley and Labor in with a real chance having written them off a couple of weeks ago. These were the same people who wrote Mr Howard and the Liberals off several months ago. It will mean a more serious coverage of Labor’s policies because they have a prospect of being put into effect. It will have a flow down effect that there is a real contest here and generate some excitement into it.
Secondly, the debate gave Mr Beazley a chance to make it plain that he has no differences with the Liberal party on refugees and the war on terrorism. That goes some way to neutralising the “”leadership” question in relation to external security. On that point Mr Beazley did well to point out the flaw in Mr Howard’s argument that voters should stay with his Government in these insecure times. Mr Howard may not be there for the full term and key Ministers in his leadership team are retiring at the election (Defence, Finance and Health).
Thirdly, it made Mr Beazley look like the man of the future and Mr Howard as the man of the past. Mr Howard urged voters to stay with him for security and did not talk about the future, rather relying on his past record. Mr Beazley was more forward-looking.
Unfortunately, Mr Howard has agreed to only one debate. It is unfortunate because it has come so early in the campaign; it has come before the Treasury has issued its estimates of the Government’s budgetary position under the Charter of Budget Honesty and only half the issues were covered in the first debate.
There should be another debate. Mr Howard is doing himself a disservice by not agreeing because it looks as if he is running away. Voters are entitled to have the remaining issues debated. We have heard about defence and foreign policy, but very little on health and education. We have also not heard enough on economic policy. Mr Howard should take up the opportunity to test Mr Beazley on fiscal rectitude – on meeting the cost of his plans for health and education. Mr Beazley should be further questioned on the details on the nature of his plans to roll-back the Government’s industrial relations reforms and how he plans to keep interest rates low.
Perhaps the second debate, or the third, could include the Democrats, on the basis that they have party status in the Senate.
In all, the arrangements for this election are unsatisfactory. Voters have been cheated. Moreover, the arrangements for making the arrangements are unsatisfactory. They are too informal. They rely on co-operation between the parties at the very time that co-operation is unlikely. Either side can be a spoiler.
Early in the next term before the heat of another election is upon us, whoever is in Government, the major parties should organise a process to set the televised debates for each election and be bound by it. It may involve the setting up of a neutral commission, as in the United States. It would determine the number of debates, the participants, the adjudicator and so on.
As things stand, Mr Howard’s petulance in not agreeing to a second debate does his leadership credentials no credit.