Seven’s election debate to air after Big Brother as prime minister snubs ABC

The third and final election debate between Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese will air on Channel Seven next Wednesday - but not until after Big Brother which is scheduled to end at 9.10pm.

Seven is launching the reality franchise on Monday and nothing, not even matters of state, will be allowed to bump Big Brother.

The prime minister has accepted invitations to debate the Labor leader on two commercial TV networks and Rupert Murdoch's pay TV platform but has refused to appear on the ABC.

The ABC repeatedly offered an earlier time slot on any day suitable to both leaders via the Insiders host, David Speers, and the broadcaster's managing director, David Anderson. But last week Morrison suggested the ABC didn't have much of a chance when he omitted to mention the invitation which Anderson had made public a week earlier.

"I'm happy to do two debates next week," Morrison said while campaigning in Cairns. "Seven and Nine have both offered me debates next week. I'm happy to do both of them. I said I would do three. I've already done one. He said he would debate me any time. Seven and Nine, book the hall, I'll be there."

For the ABC, the news on Monday evening that Seven had secured the 11 May debate meant the door had been slammed shut. Hours later the federal director of the Liberal party, Andrew Hirst, who had been fielding offers from the media, wrote to Anderson rejecting the ABC offer without giving an explanation.

The prime minister also rejected an offer from Labor for a debate at the National Press Club to be moderated by its president, Laura Tingle, the chief political correspondent at ABC's 7.30 program.

Former ABC journalist Kerry O'Brien used to regularly host the broadcaster's election debates before John Howard refused to appear during the 1996 election campaign. Although the opposition leader at the time, Howard was able to dictate his preferred platform, and he chose the Nine Network with Ray Martin.

O'Brien believes the public appetite for three debates is not there - but there should have been one on the public broadcaster.

"Election debates rarely prove anything of much importance about either leader's worthiness to be the next prime minister, and I doubt there's any hunger from the public for three of them," O'Brien told Guardian Australia.

"But if the major parties are going to have them at all, they should all be on the same neutral media territory - like the National Press Club - with a consistent format and a genuine commitment to test their policy mettle.

"The fact that the debates have been divvied up amongst Rupert Murdoch, Kerry Stokes and a company called Nine Entertainment, with no room for the public broadcaster at all - the most respected news institution in the nation by a country mile - reflects very poorly on both Coalition and Labor."

For his part, Albanese was willing to debate Morrison on any network and agreed in principle to all the offers but his Covid diagnosis meant he held back on confirming any dates because he didn't know if he'd be well enough. His camp believed the ABC should have had a debate.

When it became clear Morrison would never agree to the ABC or the press club, Albanese agreed to a debate on Seven, hosted by veteran political editor Mark Riley, and branded The Great Debate: The Final Showdown.

Riley will moderate and there will be questions from the West Australian's federal political editor Lanai Scarr and Seven News' political correspondent Jennifer Bechwati.

Nine's debate on Sunday 9 May has been framed as a 60 Minutes program - although it's 90 minutes long - and it will go to air after Lego Masters at 8.45pm.

It will be hosted by one of the current affairs show's reporter's, Sarah Abo, with a panel drawn from the media company's platforms: Chris Uhlmann from Nine News, David Crowe from the SMH and the Age and Deb Knight from 2GB.

Conservative commentator Gerard Henderson - a consistent ABC critic - said out loud what the Morrison camp was probably thinking.

"There may well be a reluctance within the Liberal party to agreeing to a leaders' debate on the ABC where, traditionally, the practice is to commission journalists - not members of the public - to ask questions or make comments, with an ABC journalist in the presenter's chair," he wrote in the Australian. "In fact, there is only a downside for Morrison if he appears on any form of an ABC-run leaders' debate."