Leaders' debate it wasn't. More a series of soundbite-length recitations from party manifestos. Not that John Key and Phil Goff can be blamed. Tabloid television demands frantic leaping about from topic to topic every time the ringmaster, Guyon Espiner, says jump.
The one moment of drama that suggested the two men were actually fighting to become prime minister was when Mr Key started mocking the Labour leader's proposal to remove GST from "bananas".
Mr Goff accused the Prime Minister of lying in the 2008 leaders' debate when he pledged not to increase GST if National took office. A sheepish Mr Key said the rise to 15 per cent last year was not an increase but "a fiscally neutral tax switch".
Instead of letting the combatants then "engage", the referee quickly rushed them on to youth unemployment.
Both were feisty and confident, but neither, in the end, was invited to present his recipe for developing the economy.
