Here I am again, a glass of red this time rather than a gin and tonic. Goodness knows, I need it after sitting through both the Coalition and Labor policy launches on Sunday afternoon!

First came Peter Dutton and the Coalition. Back to basics, focus on Dutton the good bloke and, I reckon, a ripper attack speech on Labor from his deputy Sussan Ley. She has a gun speechwriter. Nationals leader David Littleproud came and went, but his apparently extempore speech was little to be proud of – not least his pronunciation of ‘nukular’.

Then came the man himself. He came across as a little nervous, with the appearance of a man who knew that, for him, it was do or die. The polls say so, the media say so. And he did well. He did not claim to know all the answers, but he showed the handful of voters who watched live that he knew the questions, and understood their pain. But, with the added help of a slick and cheesy pre-speech video, Dutton showed he could be likeable as well as tough, and his tone of hopeful humility – even at the outset thanking people for tuning in – was a contrast with that of his Labor opponent, as we’ll see below.

As Michael de Percy’s already commented, Dutton’s launch centrepiece was tax deductibility on up to $650,000 of their mortgage for first home buyers on low and middle incomes. It’s actually a well-thought-out policy, targeted well, and with the tricky ‘how will it work?’ fine print questions anticipated and easy to explain.

Potentially, it’s also an election winner, so why did the Coalition strategists hold it back until today? As I wrote in the first week of the campaign, the Liberals needed a Betty Blokkbuster of a policy right at the start to capture voter imaginations and hijack the political momentum back from Labor. If Dutton goes down on May 3, they’ll regret their tactical choice to hold it back.

There was plenty of other stuff too, but that was the real takeaway from Dutton’s launch. As for my dream of what he should say, he didn’t do so good. Counting the mortgage blockbuster as tax reform, that’s half a tick. The only other tick is he full-bloodedly committed to reforming our kids’ schooling to be about education, not indoctrination. But that tick was cancelled out by his – and Ley’s – equally full-blooded declarations that the Morrison government of which they were a part saved Australia from Covid, thus taking credit for the loss of personal liberty, the unnecessary rending apart of families, and the transformation of the Australian community into a Lord of the Flies reality show.

I will give Dutton extra credit, however, for standing in front of just the Australian flag, and no Coalition speaker getting into obsequious acknowledgments of country – unlike the Labor event where they had all three flags, an Aboriginal elder (and Labor councillor) giving a sanctimonious lecture and every speaker, including Albanese, doing their own ostentatious personal genuflection to just three self-identified per cent of the Australian population.

Commitments to fiscal discipline, offsets and savings came there none from Dutton or his warm-ups. Just why was reinforced when Labor followed the Liberals later in the afternoon.

Trumpeting their positive record of the last three years (poor, deluded fools they are), and restating their already-announced huge-spending policies, and a host of new ones, Labor kept demanding what cuts Dutton was going to make, especially to fund his nuclear energy vision. That they themselves are not going to cut a cent of anything is the corollary of their attack doesn’t seem to matter: they’re certain that billions worth of so-called free stuff trumps any questions of how it’s to be paid for.

What was striking about Labor’s launch was not so much its new policy drops, including the surprise automatic $1,000 income tax deduction. It was how often, and how nastily they personally attacked Dutton and blatantly lied about his record as a senior Coalition minister. The public and the bookies may be looking good for Labor just now, but Labor’s internal polls might just be telling a different story in those must-win seats.

Nonetheless, Anthony Albanese came out and gave what I’m sure he thinks was the speech of his life. He radiated confidence verging on arrogant cockiness. The autocue was his friend. Albanese buried his myriad failures of the last three years – notably the unmentioned Voice – and pretended that living standards hadn’t fallen, energy prices hadn’t gone though the roof, and that Labor is the party of sage competence. When he said that Labor needs another term to finish what they started, the Liberal attack ad should show that’s exactly why that’s why Labor has to go.

It certainly wasn’t the hesitant and tentative Albanese we say in the 2022 election campaign. But beyond that radiated confidence (or fake-it-till-you-make-it bravado?) what struck me about Albanese’s speech was the demagoguery of it. Labor may not like Donald Trump, but Albanese plagiarised Trump’s signature stump style. It jarred with me, and probably with other live viewers who aren’t rusted-on Labor supporters. But those viewers will be few: what really matters will be the few seconds of news grabs taken from both launches, and Albanese will probably be satisfied he gave media outlets what they wanted; lower-key Dutton possibly less so.

All in all, we now have a real contest of policy, especially on housing. But so much policy was dropped by both sides today that there’ll be too much for media and voters to digest. Whatever policies get the most attention, whether it be from either side, are likely to set the agenda for this Easter week of campaigning, and potentially decide this, up till now, Seinfeld election.

Now another glass of vino for little ol’ wine drinker me…

Terry Barnes writes the Morning Double Shot newsletter