Wendy Francis debates Sex Party on live brekky tv

Wendy Francis, gets ready to debate Fiona Patten on Channel 7 Sunrise

In a welcome development for what has been an otherwise anodyne election campaign to date Channel 7’s Sunrise featured a live debate between Fiona Patten representing the Australian Sex Party and our own Wendy Francis, lead candidate for Family First in Queensland. Both participants were told over the weekend that after an initial 30 second pitch to start the debate there were basically no rules.

Patten, the first ever President of the Eros Foundation won the toss and pitched ASP as a “civil liberties” party and representing the “majority view” on issues like same sex marriage, voluntary euthanasia, sex education and also keeping religion out of politics. She was cut off by the hooter and then Wendy kicked off with her opener stating that Family First will bring “balance to the balance of power” and stated that “the most important question you need to ask yourself when you go to vote is: what sort of Australia do we want for our children and our children’s children. Do we want a society with no morals, no values and no sense of what’s right and wrong?”

The first topic of debate was G-rated outdoor advertising and during this debate Patten made the admission that “some of them are fairly tasteless”, and later admitting “look we do get some tasteless stuff but that’s part of a free society”. The mind boggles as to how bad a billboard must be if even someone who represents pornographers and sex workers finds it tasteless. Francis made the point that Patten represents a lobby that” is not speaking for the majority of Australians she is speaking for the sex industry.”

Patten then challenged Francis as to whether she would support a Royal Commission into sex abuse in the church. Francis supported an Commission to look into it “across the board” and countered asking if “we could have it in the sex industry as well”. The debate moved on to the question of an internet filter with Patten taking the stand that she was against filtering but wanted the perpetrators closed down and sent to jail. This of course is virtually impossible when those who run the sites do not live in Australia.

The next stop in the debate was on the issue of same sex marriage with Wendy asking why we would want to change the definition of marriage on the basis of a lifestyle choice, whilst supporting the right of any gay couple to be just that. Wendy supported the current definition of marriage according to the Marriage Act and saw no reason for changing that. In this election that view is shared by both major parties whilst the Greens are pushing for gay marriage. This formed part of their key election platform at their campaign launch over the weekend. This section ended with Patten stating “Wendy, your idea of family is not probably the idea of most people…a lot of people’s families in Australia”. The census data shows that Patten may need to clarify that further.

The next issue on the agenda was the tax free status of religions which the ASP wants to scrap. Wendy pointed out the damage this would do to agencies such as the salvation Army and accused Patten of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

The presenter Mel drew the debate to a close with a question to both as to who they would prefer to see as PM. Patten nominated herself initially but then she settled for Gillard on the basis of her gender. Wendy wasn’t prepared to commit. The issue of preferences was then raised. Over the weekend the Liberal National Party struck a deal with Family First to preference FF first for the Senate in every seat bar one, whilst FF returns the favour in lower house seats. Wendy pointed out to Patten’s accusation that FF had preferenced Climate Sceptics, One Nation and Shooters that “you do actually have to preference everyone Fiona, the problem here is I’m not sure Fiona understands the ticket… because you do have preference every party.”

The preference arrangements of all parties had to be submitted on Saturday and the Courier Mail broke the news of the preference deal between the LNP and Family First. Like it or not Patten had to preference those parties as well, the only question of course being where they were preferenced out of 23.

Reading through a number of Tweets at the #ausvotes feed there were more than a few ASP supporters who felt aggrieved at the amount of interruptions. The debate was heavily advertised by Channel 7 and the rules of the debate were provided to each participant on the weekend by the executive producer. Rules were that that were no rules, and each was invited to interrupt the other so that a genuine unscripted debate could occur. Each participant were encouraged before the debate started to interact in this way as much as possible. A tweet from Sunrise said that the main feedback was that “they talked over each other (just like question time!) , otherwise a good match!”

The debate was a coup for Sunrise. Who would have thought that two weeks into a national election a breakfast tv show would host the first unscripted debate of the campaign, and who would have thought of the two most unlikeliest candidates in the Sex Party and Family First? This shows the value of our democratic system that allows minor parties to participate in an election, and provides some alternative choices for voters.

Tagged as: Australian election, Channel 7. Mel & Kochie, Family First, Federal Election, G-rated billboards, Senate candidate, Sunrise, Wendy Francis