Pidgin Politics

As we enter the penultimate week of the campaign, Paula, Margo and Wes get together to unpack the big events defining the playing field as pre-poll votes already begin to flow in. We start with the Facebook Leaders debate, which saw Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull head to what host Joe Hildebrand called the “Facebook bunker” to answer questions from within the room and online, as punters evaluated their responses via “reactions”. It seemed like the loosest we’ve seen both leaders but did the format add anything new? Next we turn to the Labor launch, which saw famous past leaders (with the notable exception of Kevin Rudd) sit down with current party faithful to finally officially launch the campaign. Bill Shorten gave the pep talk of his career but is it enough to put gas in the tank for the final few weeks? With twitter and news sites abuzz about an ad featuring an allegedly fake trade (who, as it turns out, is not fake) we turn to a wrap up of an analysis of the ads that defin