Tonight Sky News Australia will host a town hall meeting/debate between Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton with an audience supposedly of 100 people drawn from a cross-section of swingers voters.

And the end of the proceedings the participants will ‘vote’ on who they believe ‘won’ the debate.

The ‘debate’ and the ‘voting’ will have no meaningful outcome on the election result.

Debates rarely do. And as to who ‘wins’ them? Well just look back to the Harris/Trump debate in the US Presidential election campaign.

Pundits almost unanimously said Harris won but she lost the election.

These events are trivial in the overall way people make their decisions as to who they will or won’t support.

Very few people will watch it or pay much attention to the press and radio commentary tomorrow.

The only way these ‘debates’ can have an impact on voter intention is if there is a massive own goal by one or the other participants and that impact is only their own support base who might mark them down.

Voters view these events in a very partisan manner. Then outcome matters not a jot.

But that will not stop the rivers of commentary and ‘analysis’ immediately post-debate with panellists and ‘experts’ giving their meaningless two cents worth and the equally empty follow-up coverage in the press the following day.

When musing over these ‘debates’ and subsequent commentary I am often

reminded of this quote from Macbeth: ‘…it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’

And that quote basically encapsulates the whole evening proceedings.

It is trivial. It is entertainment and a political circus.