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The Leadership Debate

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Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott face off in front of Australian Parliament HouseThe graphic I created for the Election Open Threads on LP was obviously prophetic.

Have a transcript of the debate. I didn’t think either of them put up a performance that would change people’s voting intentions, or push a waverer, one way or the other.

Your thorts? Or did you watch something else instead? Our house watched Top Gear while I watched it on the web.

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Categories: parties and factions

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5 replies

  1. tigtog
    2010-07-26 • 10:26 AM

    Just quoting Mindy’s latest comment on the open thread:

    After the debate last night they went to some voters in Penrith to ask who they thought won the debate. The two young women on the panel of 6 gave it to Julia. The other three women (older maybe late 30’s – early 50’s) gave it to Abbott and the only man said Abbott won as well. His reason? He doesn’t trust anything Julia says after
    1. she took the PMship from Rudd (all by herself apparently)
    and
    2. she denied females the historical opportunity to vote in the first ever female PM by taking it selfishly for herself.
    The distaste in his voice when he said females was absolutely chilling. It was all complete bullshit of course. He just doesn’t like women and I think it really gets his goat that one is now PM. Nasty nasty man. At least he only has one vote, just like me. I did wonder if away by herself in the polling booth his wife might dare to vote for Labor.

  2. Mindy
    2010-07-26 • 10:41 AM

    There wasn’t anything spectacular, it was all rather ho-hum I thought. Julia got in a couple of good blows with the explanation of moving forward and why they aren’t going for the Nauru solution for asylum seekers. I also thought her explanation of why turning the boats around was sound. But she was up against Abbott who only had to sound reasonable, and he did, after his last terrible effort against Rudd, so a lot of people think he won. I don’t agree, I think Julia won it but not by much. It was just so uninspiring. I’m thinking that the big stuff up from Abbott isn’t going to come and that Julia is going to really have to get into top gear soon and do something positive. The jibe about having two opposition leaders is really starting to ring true.

  3. Sam Bauers
    2010-07-26 • 10:41 AM

    I think Penrithians have been overly leant on as the voice of “ordinary Australia” of late.

  4. TimT
    2010-07-26 • 3:47 PM

    ALPites won’t be happy with the ABC going to Penrith for ‘ordinary’ Aussies opinions, I’ll bet. A State Labor rep recently got kicked out there and there’s probably quite a bit of discontent with ALP corruption and perceived corruption.
    I thought Gillard was a bit more cunning than Abbott in that she waited for those moments when she had the last word on a particular subject before lying outrageously about a Coalition position, which Abbott would then be unable to reply to because a journo would move on to another subject.

  5. Sheryl
    2010-07-26 • 4:21 PM

    Saw the second half. Not particularly impressed with either of them, though I think Gillard had the edge with her debating skills. She certainly got us all smiling and calling touché when she (in her answer to a question about how she took leadership) referred to Abbott’s ousting of Malcolm Turnbull, and said that Abbott would share her understanding of how difficult decisions have to be made and carried out.

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