(Transcript from World News Australia Radio)
The Labor leaders debate forms part of the opponents' nationwide campaign to sway rank and file members who - for the first time in Labor Party history - have the chance to vote for their new leader.
Thea Cowie reports.
It was not a traditional adversarial style debate.
Instead the Labor leaders' debate saw the opponents singing each others' praises on more than one occasion.
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"SHORTEN: Anthony Albanese is a formidable parliamentary performer and representative of Labor. I am around for the long haul. He is a good fellow and if you pick him I can understand. // ALBANESE: We have, an opportunity to have real momentum, whether Bill, who would make a great leader of the Labor Party and one that I would be very proud to serve, or myself is successful, we have an opportunity to unite."
The consensus continued with both men using the debate to restate their support for a price on carbon and for the National Broadband Network.
Anthony Albanese, who entered the Australian parliament in 1996, highlighted his experience as a politician both in government and opposition.
He says Labor needs to be constructive in opposition, using its time to develop what he called the next big policy ideas.
The New South Wales MP spoke about the party he's committed his life to, and the party he thinks can return to government after just one term in Opposition.
"I believe, and I know that all of us believe, it is possible to win the next election and we must repudiate the doctrine which says that there is a cycle and if we sit back and do little invariably it will be our turn again. We cannot rely on that. The Australian people, the people who rely on us and the people who rely on us and the people who no longer vote for us and wish to look at Labor as being a strong alternative. They want us to have the big ideas, be brave and they want us to rebuild their trust in us. We can do it."
Bill Shorten's parliamentary career stretches back only to the start of the Rudd government, but the leadership hopeful has spoken of his extensive experience in the union movement.
The Victorian MP outlined tackling domestic violence, embracing the digital revolution and science, extending disability-care and reaching out to the growing economies of Asia as areas he'd like to focus on.
Mr Shorten even says he knows what kind of Prime Minister he'd like to be, if he gets the chance to lead Labor to victory.
"I would like to be known as the PM for the powerless, for the disempowered, for people who don't have a voice in society. Through my work and I thought I had seen second class treatment as a union rep but nothing prepared me for when I started in disabilities. Then through various highways and byways, I have become more aware of domestic violence and how 250,000 women will have been assaulted in the last 12 months by men."
The debate at Sydney's University of Technology centered around questions from an audience of Labor Party members, with questions on how the men would approach issues of aged and disability care, gender equality and even space exploration.
A man in the audience received rousing applause after asking whether both leadership contenders were prepared to lose an election on what he called a more humane refugee policy.
"We need to make sure that we hold the government to account. We do want an orderly migration program but we also want to treat people with compassion, with respect and as people. That is something that during the last term, the former government stopped doing. They stopped treating people with respect at all. // SHORTEN: We are pro refugees. It is not a bad thing to want to come here. We are the nation of the second chance. We need to correct where Pauline Hanson took us off track and John Howard followed and then Labor in the last Opposition. The way Labor avoids being dragged off course in the future, we don't define ourselves by what the government of the day is doing. We define ourselves by our fundamental principles. I agree, we should lift our refugee intake."
The latest Morgan opinion poll released on September 24 shows Mr Albanese leads Mr Shorten as preferred Labor leader 41 to 23 per cent.
