John Howard stumbles in Australian election debate

John Howard and Kevin Rudd went head-to-head tonight in the only leader’s debate of the Australian election. Most commentators are giving it to Rudd. His opening was upbeat, talking about the future and the need for new leadership. Howard’s opening was strange: instead of outlining what he is going to do if he is re-elected or frightening people with the prospect of a Labor government, he spoke about the achievements of the past twenty years (for nine of which Labor was in power),  and  how he is an optimist while Rudd is a pessimist. His bizarre message to voters who hate his new industrial relations laws was that they should relax as “Australia has the second highest minimum wages of any country in the developed world”. Not what you want to hear if you are worried about having your overtime rates cut.  His worst moment came when he was asked how voters could be sure he wasn’t planning any more changes to the industrial relations laws, given that he had failed to mention the current laws during the last election.