Election 2016: The Leaders’ Debate Recap
It was a big night at the National Press Club, as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition “Leader” Bill Shorten faced off in a titanic leaders’ debate that produced high drama and wrenching emotion, but failed to produce a clear winner, in a prime example of what political analysts call, “the same thing that happens in every debate ever”.
The night began with the entrance of the two leaders. Mr Turnbull, resplendent in a red velvet lounge suit, made the bigger splash, striding through the NPC doors accompanied by his hype man, Big Sam Q, and his famous nude security detail. Mr Shorten’s arrival was less ostentatious, the Labor leader falling into the room out of an air vent, dressed only in a used flour sack. But he made up for his lack of glamour with his opening remarks, in which he spat machine-gun rhymes over a booming beat and crunching metal guitars. Mr Turnbull seemed taken aback by his opponent’s verbal dexterity and brutal charisma, spending several minutes on a chaise longue being fanned by peacock tails before getting up to make his reply.
When that reply did come, it was slightly surprising, in that the prime minister chose to address the audience not in words, but in origami. The room exploded with applause when he unveiled his centrepiece, “Jobs and Growth”, made from vivid pink construction paper.
Jobs and growth were in fact the themes of the early part of the debate. The first question directed at the prime minister was, “What exactly do you mean by jobs and growth?” to which Mr Turnbull responded by shooting the questioner with a Magnum .357 supplied by the NPC. The message was clear: a Coalition government would be strong on security.
By contrast, Mr Shorten surprised many by declaring that a Labor government would be weak on security, answering the first question posed to him by detailing his plan to abolish the Australian Defence Force and pay people smugglers a million dollars per boat. When asked why he was pursuing this policy, Mr Shorten went on the attack, accusing the questioner of racism.
It was now Mr Turnbull’s turn to address the asylum seeker issue, which he explained he planned to deal with by means of “an enormous bow and arrow”, which he would aim out to sea while standing on top of the Harbour Bridge. “I will shoot those refugees right in the eye!” the PM vowed, while drinking a glass of milk to demonstrate his ventriloquism skills.
Health policy was next on the agenda, with Mr Shorten holding up a glass vial of blue liquid and claiming it to be the cure for whooping cough. Mr Turnbull responded by pledging eight hundred billion dollars for a public bandaid scheme. Claim and counter-claim quickly resulted in a violent brawl, in which the prime minister lost an eye.
When order was restored in the press club, the leaders returned to the question of health, with the Labor leader accusing Mr Turnbull of not even knowing what a hospital is, and the prime minister shooting back that Mr Shorten had rabies. The whole question was decided by a coin toss, which the Opposition Leader won.
Next on the agenda: negative gearing. Mr Turnbull replied to a question on why negative gearing was great by drawing a picture of a house and stapling it to his face. Mr Shorten provided a telling riposte with a picture of his own, this one showing the house on fire and being eaten by a giant hippo.
The budget was a hot topic, with the prime minister promising to balance the budget by tomorrow, and the Opposition Leader claiming he had already balanced the budget, and if everyone just checked their phones, they would see. Results, however, were inconclusive. Mr Turnbull mocked Mr Shorten’s lack of economic savvy, calling him “a fiscal hobbit”, a line which brought a sustained eight-minute standing ovation. The mood, though, turned sour when Mr Shorten responded by faking his own death.
We then moved on to the traditional face-licking section of the debate. Most judges awarded this contest to Mr Turnbull, who licked Mr Shorten’s face with long, languid strokes that reminded many observers of the music of Charles Mingus. Mr Shorten, in contrast, seemed somewhat over-enthusiastic, taking an alarming amount of skin off Mr Turnbull’s cheeks and jaw with his frenetic tongue-darts.
But what the Opposition Leader lacked in tongueplay, he made up for in zingers, delivering numerous red-hot one-liners throughout the night, including:
“Malcolm Turnbull’s problem is he’s all oven and no stovetop”
“In Labor we believe in a fair shake for workers: the Liberals only believe in killing everyone with spears”
“This election is a referendum on tree shrews”
“Like I always say, if you pay peanuts, you’ll get elephants, and Malcolm Turnbull’s elephant is in the room right now, and I am the man to kill, skin and clean it so we can all eat delicious elephant goulash for supper” *begins turning around in slow, rhythmic circles*
“Maybe YOU are the vagina, Malcolm!”
The debate closed with a detailed question from veteran journalist Lenore Taylor on the question of what the respective parties planned to do about decaying infrastructure and capacity constraints in the export sector. Mr Shorten answered by screening the entire fourth series of hit Eighties britcom “Bread”, while Mr Turnbull addressed the issue by personallty washing and styling the hair of everyone present.
The verdict of most onlookers was that, while no knockout blow had been delivered by either man, several had been delivered by Laurie Oakes, who had spent the entire debate fighting homeless men in the toilets. As for the debate itself, Mr Turnbull declared himself satisfied with how the evening went, before mounting his purple motorcycle and riding into the night. Mr Shorten was last seen tied to the rear bumper of a Toyota Prado, being dragged in circles around the carpark of a Belconnen supermarket.
In the end, voters will decide.
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