First, it’s not really a debate. Not in the sense of being an interlocutory exchange. We don’t appear to do them in Australia. Rudd and Abbott will make opening statements, then ten journalists — count ’em — will ask questions of them, with the other leader who wasn’t asked the question getting to respond as well.

The idea that leaders might sit down with a moderator and go at each other without interruption — which happens, for example, in France — hasn’t been tried since 1993 when Kerry O’Brien moderated one debate and Keating invited Hewson onto A Current Affair in a snap debate on the GST. That was the debate where the kids had to be ushered out of the room and grannies choked on their dinners because Keating went so feral on Hewson.

But that boxing match form probably isn’t too popular with journalists, since it only needs one of them and it need not even be a journo.

1993 was the last time debates had any significance electorally. Since then, fewer and fewer people have watched election debates and even in 2007, when the pending defeat of John Howard generated huge political engagement from voters, only a total of 2.4m people watched Kevin Rudd pwn Howard in prime time on a Sunday night.

So this debate, in the middle of the day, months away from an election when voters aren’t paying the slightest bit of attention, will have virtually no impact. Rudd or Abbott could clobber his opponent senseless and it won’t have the slightest bearing on the election. All it will do is help keep the debate on health, which is what Rudd wants, or sustain Tony Abbott’s momentum in bringing the Coalition back from the brink of annihilation.

Or, quite possibly, both.

Some unkind souls might suggest, indeed, that the debate is a giant wank on the part of our political class, particularly given it won’t be focusing on the most serious problems in our health system.

Even so, it brought out some tensions between the National Press Club and the Press Gallery that have lain dormant since 2007, when the election debate developed into a rancorous controversy over Nine’s use, against the strictures of Brian Loughnane, of the worm, and the efforts of the National Press Club’s Maurice Reilly to shut down Nine’s feed. Laurie Oakes later charged the Press Club with becoming “a haven for PR people, log-rollers and real estate agents.”

The avuncular Reilly most assuredly takes his role as host of political events very seriously. I’ve rarely seen a man in a suit move so fast as when two protestors rose during Kevin Rudd’s speech on emissions trading at the Press Club in 2008 and began yelling at the Prime Minister. Reilly and staff physically removed them.

Once Rudd had offered Abbott a debate at the Press Club, that put the debate firmly in the control of Reilly and the club directors. Talks involving the Press Gallery and the major parties to establish a formal Debates Commission that would take a lot of the politics — both media and party — out of the debates process have been stalled for some time.

Accordingly there were a few Gallery noses out of joint when journalists read in the Fairfax press on Saturday morning of what the arrangements would be for the debate, based on what the Press Club had negotiated with the parties on Friday afternoon. It wasn’t until Saturday evening that Reilly sent around an email formally outlining the arrangements and inviting media outlets to nominate one journalist to be on the inquisition panel of ten “senior journalists”.

On Sunday, Gallery president, Herald-Sun political editor Phillip Hudson, sent an email around the Gallery apologising for not having been able to provide information about the debate. It was hardly his fault given it was the Press Club board that had called the shots. Hudson had demanded and got a clean feed with no “worm” restrictions.

The irony is that the Press Club board is make up almost entirely of Press Gallery journalists. Vice-President Misha Schubert and directors Steve Lewis, Sophie Morris, Chris Uhlmann — who is moderator today — and David Speers are all active Gallery members, while president Ken Randall and director Laurie Wilson are both veteran political journalists.

In any event, Paul Bongiorno, Sandra O’Malley, Sue Dunlevy, Lyndal Curtis, Mark Riley, Laura Tingle, Matthew Franklin, Michelle Grattan, Nine’s Jayne Azzopardi, Karen Middleton and Andrew Probyn will be the interrogators, assigned on the basis of an allocation of 4 TV,1 Radio. 2 News Ltd, 2 Fairfax, 2 Other.

Crikey‘s bid to represent online media, or “other” or, frankly, anyone who would have us, failed.