Anthony Albanese on day 25 of the election campaign (Image: AAP/Lukas Coch)
Anthony Albanese (Image: AAP/Lukas Coch)

If a gaffe falls in a forest of content and no one is around to hear it, does it matter?

Anthony Albanese’s second public stumble of the campaign trail came when he couldn’t remember all six points of his party’s six-point plan for the NDIS. A staffer had to quickly hand him a list of the points. 

Even if Albanese should’ve known his policy back to front and inside out, ever since that day-one gaffe, there’s been an annoying tendency to use these daily press conferences as an opportunity to test the opposition leader’s memory of various random facts and numbers.

Some journalists are getting frustrated that he’s been handing off a few of these attempted gotchas to some of the (admittedly more polished) members of his frontbench, like Jim Chalmers and Jason Clare.

The real question is whether the public really cares. We spent a week doing hot-takes on Albanese’s failure to recall the unemployment and cash rates, and yet it didn’t derail Labor’s campaign. The opposition maintains a solid lead in the polls. Still, it’s a stumble that will make Labor strategists nervous, especially as the opposition feels like its finally capturing a bit of momentum.

But at this point in the campaign, when voters are starting to make up their minds, it may get lost in the rising noise of the government’s own failures. Inflation and interest rates have punctured the Coalition’s “superior economic manager” narrative.

At a press conference today, Morrison was grilled over the deteriorating relationship with Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare — in particular, the details of how Australia could still know we were the country’s preferred security partner when the two leaders hadn’t spoken since last year.

The prime minister was in Parramatta today for the fifth time during the campaign. It’s a seat the government hopes to win back from Labor, a key part of Morrison’s “suburban strategy” to cling on to power. There, he faced questions about why his campaign is avoiding “teal-threatened” urban seats that were once the Liberals’ heartland.

“Is it because your brand is toxic there?” a journalist asked, before getting stonewalled with the classic lines about how “this election is a choice”. Albanese sometimes waffles and hands off when in trouble. Morrison thunders his empty lines with a steely determination. Apparently this is what makes a genius campaigner. 

Albo’s gaffe might also get lost amid what was a frantic day, featuring two high-profile debates. The first pitted Defence Minister Peter Dutton against his Labor counterpart, Brendan O’Connor.

You can tell why Dutton agreed to this match-up. He is in his comfortably blunt, ex-copper element beating the drums of a potential war with China and calling The Guardian a “trashy publication”. In contrast, O’Connor seemed to shuffle uncomfortably around the stage.

That said, the opposition’s would-be defence minister scored some points over the Solomons issue, clearly a mess that won’t go away for the government. Dutton was also typically hyperbolic at times, claiming Labor’s left flank wanted to tear up the US alliance, and accusing Penny Wong of wanting to play appeasement with China.

Arguably more interesting stuff on the China issue came up at Hawthorn Town Hall, at a Kooyong candidates forum between Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and independent challenger Monique Ryan.

Ryan accused the government of “macho, chest-beating belligerence” in its handling of the China issue, and noted the fears of Chinese-Australian constituents about some of the nasty rhetoric this has dredged up.

It’s a crucial bit of sensitivity both parties have backed away from in a hawkish race to the bottom on sticking it to Xi Jinping — even as Chinese Australian voters could decide key seats like Chisholm, Reid and Bennelong.

Back to Kooyong, though: the mere fact the treasurer had to do a debate like this shows just how worried he is about his seat. In a tense debate, Ryan, a political rookie, landed her share of zingers against one of the most powerful men in the country (“treasurer for NSW”; “a hostage to Barnaby Joyce and his own political ambitions”).

The Liberals have huffed and puffed about the temerity of people like Ryan running in their heartland. But today’s debate, full of energy and covering everything from climate (obviously) to child labour and nuclear weapons, felt like one of the most energetic exchanges of the campaign.

When debate, policy and energy have all felt so lacklustre, that itself probably makes the teals a good thing.