Australian election rivals hold muted debate

Australia PM, Kevin Rudd

Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has gone head-to-head with challenger Tony Abbott on immigration and the economy in a muted first debate of the country's election campaign.

Rudd, who retook the Australian Labor Party leadership in late June, has repeatedly said he is the underdog in the September 7 national poll against Abbott, the conservative opposition leader.

The latest Galaxy poll, published in Australia's Sunday Telegraph newspaper, showed that  while it remained a tight race, Labor's primary vote fell from 40 to 38 percent  while Abbott's Liberal/National coalition rose from 44 to 45 percent.In a two-party race between Labor and the conservative coalition, the  government was trailing 49 percent to 51 percent, according to the poll of 1,002 voters taken at the end of last week.

Al Jazeera's Andrew Thomas, reporting from Christmas Island where there is a detention centre for migrants, said immigration is a hot-button issue after Abbott accused Rudd of not protecting the country's borders.

"What I've put forward is a new policy for the future with one simple principle attached," Rudd said during the debate at the National Press Club in capital Canberra.

"If you're a people smuggler bringing someone to Australia and you're seeking to settle them in Australia, we will not allow them to settle here. They'll be sent for processing in Papua New Guinea."

Abbott hit back that Rudd's government had dismantled already successful border protection policies put in place by a previous Liberal/National coalition government.

"And it's because Mr Rudd closed it all down that we've had more than 50,000 illegal arrivals, more than 800 boats, 11 billion dollars in budget blow-outs," Abbott said. 

Statesman-like calm

Peter Hartcher, political editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, told Al Jazeera that there are only slight differences between the immigration policies of the two men but that both are trying to establish the toughest possible deterrents to appeal to Australians frustrated by illegal migrants.

On the economy, Hartcher said that, again, there was little difference between them.

"Both leaders agree on the policy outcome they need, which is that Australia, after the biggest mining boom in its history, needs to diversify its economy more broadly, yet neither leader got us any closer to explaining how they would achieve that," he said. 

Analysts said the neither man emerged as a clear winner of  the debate and that it was muted because both of them were trying to project a statesman-like manner of calm.

"That's particularly important for Tony Abbott," Hartcher said. "His party is, on current trajectory, likely to win but a lot of voters have concerns about Tony Abbott. He did come across as broadly competent and broadly reassuring so I think he ticked the boxes he needed to tick. "

Popular former diplomat Rudd was reinstalled as Labor leader after dismal polling indicated the party would be wiped out in this year's election if Julia Gillard remained as leader.

Aljazeera