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DANIEL:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Daniel James. This is 7am.

Anthony Albanese won the first leaders debate of the election campaign last night but it was a tight contest, with both leaders well prepared and polished as they faced undecided voters in Western Sydney – exactly the kind of battleground both sides will need to win to form government.

Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“Thanks to the hard work of Australians, including the people in this room, inflation is down. 2.4 per cent. Wages are up.”

DANIEL:

Anthony Albanese spoke of a country rallying in spite of difficult global conditions. For Peter Dutton, it was about painting a dire picture of economic pain – and blaming Albanese for it.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“In 40 years there has not been a higher spending government than your government, is that correct?”

Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“Well that's not true except for the one that you were a part of.”

DANIEL:

Today, special correspondent for The Saturday Paper Jason Koutsoukis, on the biggest moments of the first debate and what it tells us about the next stage of the campaign.

It’s Wednesday, April 9.

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DANIEL:

Jason, thanks for joining us. Who had the most to lose from last night's debate?

JASON:

Daniel, I think no question Peter Dutton, given the horrible start he's had to this election campaign. Not just the first 10 days of the campaign but the four weeks leading up to Anthony Albanese calling the election have not gone Peter Dutton's way. And so he had a lot at stake tonight.

DANIEL:

There have been reports that Anthony Albanese has been preparing for the debate by training with Dan Andrews. Did it show?

JASON:

If having the better zingers was a measure of the training that Anthony Albanese did with Dan Andrews, then I think it did show.

Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“Well, the only gas policy that the Coalition have is the gaslighting of the Australian public. He disagrees with all of the experts.”

JASON:

Because Anthony Albanese did have some better cut-through lines than did Peter Dutton.

DANIEL:

I noticed that Dutton called Albanese dishonest a number of times throughout the debate.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“It's designed to scare people, and I think it's dishonest from a man who wants to... Anthony, with respect, that's a very dishonest proposition you put.”

DANIEL:

We know there'd be a whole team of people nailing these lines of attack behind the scenes. So what did you make of that choice, Jason, to use that line?

JASON:

Well, I think that's exactly the sort of thing we would expect Peter Dutton to say to Anthony Albanese and the sort thing that the PM would say back to Peter Dutton. This is, I think, standard fare in political debates that both leaders are going to call the other dishonest or imply that they're a liar in some way. That's just what we expect that standard debate trash talking, if you like.

DANIEL:

Is it a case that Dutton's best line of defence is attack?

JASON:

Well, I think he does have to try to undermine the Prime Minister any way he can. And attacking his honesty, his integrity, is probably the easiest way to do that. But I do think it's also worth saying that I thought this debate was pretty respectful. Both leaders, they are used to dealing with each other. They have quite a good relationship across the table in the House of Representatives. There's not a lot of ill feeling between these two people and I think that showed tonight too. Yes, Peter Dutton called Albanese dishonest a number of times, but I think that's within the bounds of political debate. And it wasn't as though Peter Dutton was being disrespectful to the PM or unjustly accusing him of lying. I thought all of the lines that Peter Dutton used were pretty fair.

DANIEL:

Well let's get into some of the policy then. What did the debate tell you about where both leaders want to fight this election?

JASON:

Well, I think for the Prime Minister, very much Medicare. He kept trying to bring the debate back to Medicare. He brought out the Medicare card from his pocket, which we've seen him do a number of times.

Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“And all you need is this little thing here, Prith. You just need your Medicare card, not your credit card, because Labor…”

JASON:

And I think for Peter Dutton, it was very much about getting his campaign back onto the two key messages of the cost of living.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“I want to provide support to Australians from the first day that we're elected and that is through a 25 cent a litre cut to fuel, both diesel and unleaded. It'll help families, it'll help businesses, it will help pensioners.”

JASON:

And also national security.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“I want to make sure that we can live in a safe country. The Prime Minister says that we live in the most precarious period since the end of the Second World War, since 1945, and then takes 80 billion dollars out of defence.”

JASON:

Peter Dutton also talked about the housing crisis and what he would do to ease that if he was to become Prime Minister.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“A person is coming in every 44 seconds into our country and we haven't got the housing to accommodate that. We need to get the sequencing right and it's why we're putting $5 billion into a programme to create 500,000 new homes.”

JASON:

And so Peter Dutton tried to remind people that one of his key policies is to let less people into the country than the Albanese government has done over the last three years.

DANIEL:

Both political parties are very similar when it comes to immigration, but there was a moment where it felt like Peter Dutton was wrong-footed by a man asking about the impact of international students. He was worried that the plan to reduce the numbers would make uni more expensive for his son.

Audio excerpt — Unknown:

“How will those universities pick up the shortfall and will my son's uni fees increase?”

DANIEL:

What did you make of that moment, Jason?

JASON:

Well, I thought it was a really interesting question. It gave Peter Dutton a moment of pause. He didn't quite know how to answer that question.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“The short answer is no, because what we do as a government is we provide that funding to universities and obviously there's a HELP scheme where students are paying for part of their own education as well. What we've done, though, is that we've said under the governments...”

JASON:

It was a really good moment in this debate. You know, one of those candid moments that sticks with you.

DANIEL:

And what Peter Dutton is firmly laying the blame at and it's at the feet of international students who he says are causing the crisis in housing around Australia.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“I want desperately to make sure that we get an opportunity for young people to believe in and achieve again the dream of home ownership. There are about 42 international students coming into our country for every one student accommodation unit that's been approved. And that has had a big impact.”

DANIEL:

Is this working for him to blame students like that?

JASON:

I don't think so, Daniel, because I'm not sure that international students come to Australia and buy the sorts of houses that ordinary working families are trying to buy. I don't see too many international students living in outer suburban areas, in our bigger cities. International students tend to cram themselves into small apartments very close to the campuses where they're studying, and I just don't get the feeling that international students are taking houses other Australian residents are trying to rent or buy. And I'm not sure that it's going to work for Peter Dutton in the long term.

DANIEL:

Coming up after the break - who was more convincing on the economy?

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Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“Well, my question to Peter is that, you have opposed every cost of living measure that we've put forward over the last three years in government. You're now going to an election with a nuclear plan that will build seven nuclear reactors that will cost $600 billion to provide 4% of power sometime in the 2040s. What are you going to cut to pay for it? Because the private sector won't fund nuclear reactors because it doesn't stack up. So taxpayers, including everyone in this room, is going to have to pay for this nuclear plant.”

DANIEL:

Jason, Anthony Albanese challenged Peter Dutton directly on his nuclear plan. Is this ultimately shaping up to be an energy election?

JASON:

Well, I think the government wants to make it an election about Peter Dutton's nuclear policy, and Peter Dutton wants to make it an election about Anthony Albanese's failure to bring power bills down by $270 a year, which is of course what he promised before the last election.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“When you go to the supermarket now you're now paying 30 per cent more for groceries, paying about 32 per cent for your electricity. And the Prime Minister promised at one of these debates at the last election that your power bills would go down by $275. Instead, they're up by $1,300.”

JASON:

So I think both leaders are coming at this issue from different perspectives. Both leaders are throwing around a lot of numbers. They're talking about the cost of gas and bringing it down by percentages and they're both arguing about each other's costings plan. Peter Dutton says his plan is 44% cheaper than the government's energy transition plan. The Prime Minister says that the coalition's nuclear plan will cost $600 billion, which of course Peter Dutton disputes. So when you have both leaders throwing these big numbers around like that in a very short space of time, I'm not sure that most voters really understand what they're arguing about. It's quite confusing. And I think when it comes to concerns that voters might have, Peter Dutton's pledge to build six or seven nuclear power stations is probably more concerning to them than Anthony Albanese's plan to build more wind farms and put more solar panels on people's roofs.

DANIEL:

I mean, both leaders were flooding the zone with heaps of different numbers being thrown at us during the debate. But through that, Jason, what did Dutton actually have to say about his nuclear plan?

JASON:

Well, he didn't say all that much about it. He did try to say that in Canada, in France, that there's a lot of nuclear power in their energy grids.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“In France, there is 70 per cent nuclear in the system. Our policy is to make sure that we can underpin our economy with a stable energy market for the next 100 years.”

JASON:

I'm not sure that that strikes a chord with many voters when he's talking about the next 100 years because people who are worried about their power bills want them to come down fairly soon and Peter Dutton's nuclear policy is not gonna do that over the next 10 years because the first nuclear power plant's not scheduled to come online until the mid 2030s. The one thing that Peter Dutton sounded a bit better on was when he was talking about how much his policy will cost versus what the Prime Minister is offering.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“Now your plan, independently costed by Frontier Economics, a company used by the Labor Party, and probably the best economist when it comes to looking at energy policy in the country, puts the Labor Party policy of renewables only at $600 billion. Our policy is 44% cheaper than that. $231 billion in total.”

JASON:

I thought Peter Dutton was quite convincing on that issue when it comes to the relative costings that each party is applying to their energy policies.

DANIEL:

As with most elections, Jason, ultimately both sides are trying to convince voters they are better at managing the economy. Who was more convincing on that front?

JASON:

I don't think either leader delivered a knockout blow here but this is the Coalition's number one bread and butter issue. I did think Peter Dutton made some good points about the Coalition strength when it comes to economic management but he didn't really land a blow on the Prime Minister. I think the Prime Minister was able to point out that Labor is the only party that has delivered two budget surpluses in the last 20 years.

Audio excerpt — Anthony Albanese:

“A $78 billion deficit we inherited, we turned that into a $22 billion surplus. And then we turned a deficit of more than $50 billion into a 15 billion dollar surplus”

JASON:

The Coalition had been promising a surplus. Of course, it famously didn't deliver one under Scott Morrison, Malcolm Turnbull or Tony Abbott. And so I think the Prime Minister was able to show that, well, you know, Labor has been managing the economy relatively well compared to the Coalition. He was also able to make the point that interest rates have started coming down, that inflation is within the Reserve Bank's target band. And I think when it comes to rebuttal, the Prime Minister did a pretty good job there as well.

DANIEL:

Jason, the Prime Minister won the debate but beyond that, what did it tell you about how he’s faring at this point in the campaign?

JASON:

Well, I mean, because this debate was in front of a studio audience, of the people in that room, I didn't detect much anger towards the Prime Minister. There wasn't, from what I could tell, much of a mood for change. And I thought that was really telling that if this is a random sample of ordinary voters, it didn't seem to me like most of them wanted to throw the Prime Minister out.

You often hear political pundits talking about voters, you know, waiting with baseball bats to smash the incumbent. I couldn't see any of those sort of baseball bats in the audience tonight. So I think the Prime Minister would come away feeling quite reassured that he's not really on the nose with voters, if that audience is an accurate snapshot of the electorate.

DANIEL:

Jason, thanks so much for burning the midnight oil for us.

JASON:

Daniel, it's always great to talk with you and be on 7am.

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DANIEL:

Also in the news today...

Thousands of public hospital doctors in New South Wales are participating in a three-day strike, pleading for better pay and conditions to stop colleagues fleeing to other states.

Doctors from more than 30 New South Wales public hospitals walked off the job yesterday, seeking a one-off 30 per cent salary increase and better working conditions, including guaranteed breaks.

It’s the first strike by New South Wales doctors in more than 25 years.

And,

Thousands of workers at Star Entertainment casinos have had their positions saved, after a US gaming giant has signed a rescue package to keep the business from falling into administration.

Star Entertainment has signed a 300 million dollar agreement with Bally’s Corporation, with Bally’s paying 100 million immediately to keep casino doors open across Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sydney.

This has been 7am. Thanks for listening.

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