Anyone
watching the live pre-election TV clash between New Zealand’s

Prime Minister Helen Clark and Opposition Leader Don Brash on Monday,

could have been forgiven for thinking they had witnessed an actual

debate, as opposed to the airbrushed, insipid spin-fests we have

become accustomed to on this side of the Tasman.

The hour-long

slug-fest can best be described as a ding-dong barney, complete with a

howling cast of partisans in the audience. This contrasts sharply

with the carefully hand-picked “un-decideds” who make up the studio

audience in Australian election debates. So feral were the Clark

opponents, she labelled them a “Tory crowd” just minutes into the

debate.

Both sides of the aisle openly jeered, heckled and mocked

their respective nemeses, not ever to be scolded by the laid-back

host, Mark Sainsbury of TVNZ. Mr Sainsbury’s modus operandi also

differed starkly from that of his Aussie counterparts. At the beginning of

each segment, rather than issuing a raft of queries bound by

time-limits, he merely threw a hand-grenade – tax, race relations,

health, education – into the fray and watched calmly as the two

leaders scrambled to both inflict and avoid injury.

Mercifully, the

closing and opening statements – which are no more than an opportunity

to spout memorised platitudes – were kept to 30 seconds each, another

lesson that can be learned from our trans-Tasman cousins.