An op ed I co-authored about how to improve Australia's election debates appears in The Age today. In it, we argue that we should take our cue from the debates held in Britain this year and do three things:

First, Australia would be well advised to institute an independent commission with responsibility for convening and co-ordinating the debates.

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Second, Australia should rethink the press gallery's hold over asking the questions. The British debates featured only questions from a selected audience of undecided voters or from questions submitted by the public online.

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Third, the success of the British debates has partly been due to the adoption of a single moderator.

The rest of the article puts a bit more flesh on those bones. The point I wanted to make in blog form though is that I'm not sure even these changes could really help us. I think the single moderator gives us the best shot - think how effectively Tony Jones can police the conversation and try to make people answer questions on Q&A. But at the end of the day, if the politicians are determined to spout focus-grouped platitudes I'm not entirely sure that we can do anything to stop them.

That depresses me a bit. We live in a country where, in contrast to the United States, our political debates are quite clear and level headed. Politicians defer to policy experts a fair amount, and the distance between the parties is small because there is broad elite consensus about how to approach most policy issues. But it seems the price we pay for sensible, safe politics is that we have such dull clashes between the parties.

We're unlikely to see a big personal or political clash between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott on Sunday night because they're remarkably similar people, with remarkably similar views. Both have succeeded because of a gift for 'talking straight' that has recently given way to a need to spout professionally tested slogans. Both have undergone significant ideological transformations in order to lead their parties, to the point where I think both now believe in whatever will get them power - hence the opportunism and lack of ideological consistency from them both.

Against that background, I worry that no matter what we do to change the format of the debates, we won't be able to do much more than tweak the outcome. I hope I'm wrong though.