Exclusive: Inside the election debate haggling

The election debate is shaping up to be a ripper as the terms have been agreed but Seven’s plans to run the worm could cause a big brawl, as Terry Television explains in this exclusive report.

Sunday September 12 has been selected as when the one and only debate of the 2004 election campaign will be held, thereby effectively starting the campaign proper on that date, which will make it four weeks to the October 9 poll.

According to letters exchanged between The ALP and the Liberal Party, dated August 30, the debate will be conducted on Channel Nine and will feature a panel of four or five journalists from the Press Gallery in Canberra, as Prime Minister John Howard first suggested at his Monday afternoon press conference with Peter Costello.

The Nine Network says one of those will be Laurie Oakes, who is likely to be the representative from Commercial Television. Another representative will be from the ABC, a third from News Ltd and the fifth from John Fairfax. The fifth person was to have been from commercial radio but they could now be dropped due to studio configuration problems.

This break-up was specified by the Liberal Party in its letter of August 30 to the ALP, which has been obtained by Crikey.

A moderator will be allowed, but not to ask questions, merely to call for questions and allow the debate to happen and progress. The moderator will make sure both leaders get equal treatment and equal time.

In the letter from the Liberal Party it says the Prime Minister is available to debate Mr Latham on September 12 in the Channel Nine studios at Willoughby “with Ray Martin moderating”.

“The same time, location and hosting arrangements as applied in 2001”, the letter from the Liberals Campaign Director, Brian Loughnane, said.

That would indicate no role for Ray Martin as an activist interviewer, just a moderator-host who will control the debate. But at least its a gig.

There are a total of 13 rules for the debate, but Rule 11 is likely to be the controversial one. It says “there will be no ‘worm’ or broadcasting of audience responses”.

That’s likely to create angst at the Nine Network which has, in the past, used the following hour to run a 60 Minutes program dedicated to obtaining audience reaction to various points raised in the debate between the two leaders. The ‘worm’ has been a key component and Nine is likely to resist not being allowed to use it.

The debate will be commercial free, both Mr Howard and Mr Latham will be allowed pens, pads and any documentation they arrive with (but not to include props).

The journalists will be ask questions alternatively of the leaders and will be allowed to follow up the responses of the leaders. The leaders will be allowed by the moderator to respond to points made by the other.

The debate will start with a two minute address from both leaders. No strict time limit will be placed on answers, but the leaders are asked to restrict answers to two minutes and the moderator will ensure both leaders have equal time. The moderator will intervene to stop one leader talking over the other.

The leaders will use standing lecturns with a clean feed provided to all other channels, and no station identifying marks allowed on the set or on the feed.

The debate will be broadcast live, thereby preventing a network or a regional group from showing something that is not political, obtaining good ratings and viewing numbers and then broadcasting it later in the night. That will force Ten to make up its mind and decide if it’s to broadcast it or ignore politics and go for its younger audience. The younger viewers Ten chases are usually the ones which ignore political broadcasts.

There will be a toss to decide who goes first. That sounds a great win. But the loser of the toss gets to have the last say in the wrap up at the end. That is the position to be in. The moderator will ask a general question at the end to allow each leader to wrap up their case. In the words of inummerable cricket commentators. “It will be a good toss to lose”.

The letter from the ALP National Secretary and National Campaign Director, Tim Gartrell to his Liberal Party counterpart reveals that the ALP wanted three debates, with the second to be in front of a community forum. That was rejected by the Liberals.

Labor argued that because of the length of the campaign there should be three debates. The ALP wanted the audience in any forum to be made up of swinging voters chosen by an agreed independent market research firm. The
Liberals rejected this.

Crikey has obtained the exchange of letters between the campaign directors and the list of rules which can be viewed here:

Defiant Seven to run the worm

In a move that’s likely to set off a brawl of epic proportions, the Seven Network will ‘worm’ the entire leaders debate on September 12. That will be in contrast to Nine, who, having agreed to the debate, will not be able to ‘worm’ it to show audience response.

With debate over whether Seven can actually use the worm, the Network says it’s going to go ahead and use the technology to show an audience response to the points made by both leaders. Under the terms of the debate the
worm is not permitted. But that applies to the Nine Network.

Nine says it will be using the worm after the debate to gauge audience reaction, but Seven sources say they are planning to use it as the debate goes to air, as was done in previous debates.

That’s likely to upset the two political parties, but as the feed had to be provided clean to other networks, there’s no comeback. Seven says it has reached agreement with Roy Morgan to use the worm, and they will be using it.

Seven’s director of News and Current Affairs Peter Meakin made the following statements to Crikey:

“The purported rules for the debate are in fact a clumsy attempt at censorship. My advice is that the Government could also be involved in a breach of its own trade practices legislation as this is a blatant attempt at third line forcing.

“Not only do they attempt to squash the Worm while the debate is in progress, they also seek to prevent anyone from using it in any subsequent analysis.

“Furthermore, there is to be ‘no broadcasting of audience responses’.

“What does that mean? That ordinary voters are banned from speaking their mind about the debate? Seldom has honesty been a bigger issue in an election. For this reason alone, the Worm has a vital role to play.

“We plan to run the debate live – with the Worm. I don’t know that the Liberal Party has the authority to tell stations who haven’t been chosen as the host broadcaster how they should operate. Channel Nine is clearly the PM’s choice and good luck to both of them.

“There’s not much point in us running the debate unless there’s a point of difference.”

CRIKEY:
First Vote For Me, now worming the debate. Will Seven chairman Kerry Stokes lose his spot next to the Prime Minister at the dinner celebrating 31 years of “lying rodent” in Parliament next year? Seven needs to pull something out of the hat as its shares tumbled another 23c to $4.66 today, meaning almost 10 per cent has been wiped out since the disappointing full year profit was released yesterday. As Mal Walden just gloated on the 5pm news, Network Ten shares rose 8c to a record high of $3.46 today.