First #LeadersDebate a farce

The first debate for the 2013 election was almost laughable with no clear winner, the use of notes and both parties failing to deliver any winning ideas.

The first #LeadersDebate was held last night at the National Press Club, with Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott going head-to-head in front of a live audience and pre-selected panel of journalists.

But rather than deliver compelling, motivating arguments both sides used the debate to repeat party speak and in many cases didn’t provide much more insight than had already been provided. They simply answered questions, and had little to no actual debate.

Not to mention, only the Labor Party and Liberal Party were involved — much to the Green’s disgust. And Kevin Rudd read off his notes, despite the rules saying notes were banned.

There was a mixed result about who won on Sunday night. Channel Nine gave the contest to Mr Rudd, 59 to 41, Channel Seven gave it to Mr Abbott, 60 to 32.

The fact that there was no clear winner from the debate last night suggests that the audience was impressed with neither side’s performance.

Perhaps the only winner from the debate is Twitter: used by Channel Nine on it’s GO! channel, Ten on One and ABC on it’s live stream, the number of live tweets per minute peaked at 2,010 tweets per minute at the end of the debate.

Gay marriage proved to be the most controversial topic from the debate (1,952 tweets were sent per minute), with Rudd revealing he would support a move to legalise gay marriage within the first 100 days of winning if his party is successful at the election. Tony Abbott remained coy on the actions (if any) he would take.

So far there’s been no word about any additional debates — but if last night is any example, it’s not likely we’ll learn much more from them.

• Image Credit: Australian Broadcasting Corporation