a cost-of-living election where neither leader can tell you the price of eggs

The fourth election debate was the most idiosyncratic of the four head-to-head contests between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

Apart from all the usual topics, the pair were charged with producing one-word responses to pictures of the prime minister’s Copacabana house, a three-eyed fish and Elon Musk.

They were asked the price of a dozen eggs. It’s an old trick from debates past, but those “prepping” the leaders had fallen down. Dutton said about A$4.20. Albanese was closer with “$7, if you can find them”. The actual price is $8.80 at Woolworths (or $8.50 at Coles). Watching at home, some viewers would have thought, “here are a couple of guys in the cost-of-living election who don’t do the shopping”.

Debate host Seven had an audience of 60 undecided voters, who scored the pair on a range of topics. They gave the overall result to Albanese over Dutton by 50%–25% with the other 25% undecided.

In general, Dutton pursued Albanese aggressively whenever he could, pressing the accusation he made in their last encounter that the prime minister does not tell the truth. “Honestly, this whole campaign, it’s hard to believe anything you say.”

Albanese, however, effectively marshalled his points and counterpoints on a number of the topics.

This showed in the scores the audience awarded on core issues. On cost of living, 65% gave the tick Albanese, and only 16% were more convinced by Dutton. On housing, Albanese also had a win, although more narrowly – 35% to 30%. With tax cuts, Albanese’s margin was 49% to 21%.

The Anzac Day heckling at the Shrine of Remembrance prompted a discussion of Welcome to Country ceremonies.

Dutton was openly critical of their extensive use. “I think a lot of Australians think it’s overdone and it cheapens the significance of what it was meant to do.”

Albanese was supportive of the ceremonies but circumspect. “Well, from my perspective, it’s a matter of respect, but it’s also, of course, up to the organisations that are hosting an event, whether they have a Welcome to Country or not. It’s up to them, and people will have different views, and people are entitled to their views.”

Dutton scored 46% to Albanese’s 27% on this topic.

One of the more bizarre moments came in a discussion about whether the leaders had US President Donald Trump’s mobile phone number. The prime minister said he was not sure whether the president even had a mobile phone (despite it being highly publicised Greg Norman had to pass the number onto former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull when Trump was elected).

But Dutton coped with the question of trusting Trump better than in the last debate, when he had said he didn’t know him. Asked whether we could trust Trump to have our back, he said “We can trust whoever’s in the Oval Office”.

Pressed on which country posed the biggest threat to Australia’s security, Dutton said, “the biggest concern from our intelligence agencies and our defence agency is in relation to the Communist Party of China”.

Albanese talked around the question of whether China posed the biggest risk to Australia’s national security. “Well, China is the major power in the region which is seeking to increase its influence. But the relationship is complex as well, because China is our major trading partner.” And on and on his answer went.

On defence Dutton was well out in front in the minds of the audience, 43% to 37%.

Albanese would have gone home the happier of the two leaders. He won on the issues at the centre of the election.

Dutton plans to visit up to 28 seats in the campaign’s final week, the majority of them held by Labor.

The Liberals say with the Coalition needing to gain 21 seats for a majority, the seats’ blitz underlines the election is winnable for the Coalition.

It also underlines the adrenaline rush leaders get in the dash to the finish line. In 2010 opposition leader Tony Abbott launched into a 36-hour non-stop blitz for the final three days of the election. “Why sleep at a time like this?” Abbott said. Prime Minister John Howard had finished his unsuccessful 2007 campaign blitzing shopping centres in Queensland.

Dutton started his marathon on Sunday in Labor territory with a rally in west Melbourne, in the seat of Hawke. The opposition leader’s seat list includes Solomon (NT), Aston (Victoria), Gilmore (NSW), Moreton (Queensland), Gorton (Victoria), Lyons (Tasmania), Dunkley (Victoria), Goldstein (Victoria), Kooyong (Vitoria), Paterson (NSW), Dobell (NSW), Bennelong (NSW), Bullwinkel (Western Australia) and Boothby (South Australia). Later on Sunday he was in the Sydney teal seat of Mackellar, where Howard also spoke in support of the Liberal candidate James Brown who is taking on independent Sophie Scamps.

But as each day passes, for an increasing number of voters in these and other seats the visits and messages will be irrelevant. They’ll have pre-polled. People are flocking to vote early. There are 11 days for pre-polling this election. Back in 2019 pre-polling ran for 19 days. As of Saturday, 2.4 million people had already pre-polled.

The politicians are vaguely resentful so many people are voting with their feet and avoiding, for a variety of reasons, the last days of what most commentators have thought has been an uninspiring campaign. Some of the politicians would like everyone to listen to their pitches right up to the end. But there is also a more practical reason why they regard pre-polling as a problem – they and their supporters have to spend long hours outside polling booths handing out how-to-vote cars.