2 Texans Down Under

They banned the worm. The worm showed up anyway. The worm says Rudd beat Howard in last night’s televised debate from the Great Hall of Parliament.

Watching Australian politics is a trip.

Here are the facts: John Howard has been Prime Minister for 11 years. Kevin Rudd is seeking to replace him in an election November 24, but nobody gets to vote for either one as Prime Minister.

Voters will cast ballots all over Australia for Senators and Representatives and when all the counting is done either the conservative Liberal Party will have won enough seats in Parliament to keep Howard in office or the less conservative Labor Party will have won enough to elevate Rudd to the top spot.

The incumbent got to set most of the rules for the Sunday night debate and Howard said there’d be only one debate, it would be last night, and it would last 90 minutes. It was conducted by the National Press Club.

Australian newspapers make no pretense of being fair and objective in their news columns (often their editorials seem more so) and most of the press strikes me as being mildly-to-rabidly in favor of the Liberals. “The Australian,” for example, has been trumpeting every story favorable to the current PM. They’ve also been running two or three flattering pictures of Howard daily while including less flattering shots of Rudd and placing these in less prominent places.

But the press didn’t cop the blame for what was arguably the most interesting story of the debate.

You need more facts. Television Channel 9, as it had done in earlier such debates, asked 90 undecided voters to rate each debater’s answers favorably or unfavorably and projected an image on screen showing their collective assessment. That image, which has come to be known as “the worm,” conveyed this group’s instant feedback.

Both political parties and the press club said Nine, one of several channels carrying the debate live, could not use the worm. Channel 9 used it anyway.

About 25 minutes into the debate, Nine’s “feed,” it’s signal, was cut off. Nine switched to a back-up feed and their viewers experienced little or no interruption.

Then, after 10 minutes, the back-up feed was cut off, too. Either Channel 9 folks had planned ahead or they’re quick on their feet because they arranged to get the signal they needed from another channel and their broadcast, including their rating worm, continued to the end of the debate.

Nine’s Ray Martin laid the blame at the feet of the Liberal Party, saying Howard operatives were responsible for the “sabotage.” He chided his press colleagues, though, for agreeing to the worm-ban in the first place “So much for free speech in Australia,” he said, “…political interference in journalism is increasing, not diminishing.” Nine had never agreed to the ban, he said.

So, the worm had its say: The 90 uncommitted voters were more favorably inclined to Rudd’s answers than Howard’s. About two-thirds said Rudd won, less than a third said Howard won, and a few were undecided.

This morning’s “The Australian” led with a story saying Rudd won, but it ran front-page comments by six analysts, two saying clearly that Rudd won, two saying the debate was a draw, another saying “Howard only lost because of the inherent edge Rudd had” as a challenger, and the sixth concluding that the debate probably didn’t matter anyway.

I read that as two saying Rudd won, two saying nobody won, one saying “it wasn’t fair,” and one saying “nevermind.”

On page six there’s a large color picture of the Liberals’ Treasurer, Peter Costello, cooking damper (a kind of dough) over coals with four cute kids in Scout uniforms.