As if the staff at Australia’s No.1 family newszine haven’t got enough on their plate as they continue their exhaustive and exhausting coverage of the federal election campaign, they’ve introduced an exciting new feature. Details below.

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But firstly Did Peter Dutton finally have a day on the hustings where he gained more votes than he lost?

On Thursday the Opposition Leader came under pressure as a result of statements he made in the party leaders’ debate on ABC TV on Wednesday night.

Mr Dutton had been asked during the debate if he believed the effects of climate change were worsening, to which he replied that he was not a scientist and would leave that assessment to them.

Following those remarks Mr Dutton faced allegations from the Labor Party, as well as environmental groups and activists, that he was a climate change denier.

On Thursday the Opposition Leader – clearly upset that he was being asked questions on matters from Wednesday’s debate when he wanted to pursue other issues – moved to end questions about his and the Coalition’s position.

“I believe in climate change, the subject of discussion today,” he said somewhat sarcastically before moving on to attack the Albanese Government on its housing policies.

While most news outlets took that as clarifying his position, audio experts engaged by The Bug who analysed a recording of Mr Dutton’s news conference are convinced that his exact words to reporters were: “I believe in climate. Change the subject of discussion today.”

Meanwhile on a visit to Brisbane yesterday Prime Minister Albanese sought to keep the idea of Mr Dutton as a climate change denier alive by rhetorically asking if the Opposition Leader believed in gravity.

In response Mr Dutton said: “I am not a scientist so I won’t pass judgement on whether gravity exists or not.

“But I suspect it does, otherwise as the earth spins – and being flat it spins at great speed – there must be some force at work to keep us all from flying off.” (main picture)

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No new polls over the last 24 hours so if our maths is correct, the average of the polls we are monitoring now has Labor a neat 53 to 47 2PP. With another horrible week for Dutton and the long weekend kicking off, the chances of the LNP clawing back support is looking darker than an arsehole after someone’s quaffed down a whole packet of licorice sticks.

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And as to those bookie odds, at around 9.40pm last night (Thursday), here are the odds from the betting agencies that we are monitoring, compared with 24 hours earlier!

Sportsbet: Labor $1.22 ($1.20); Coalition $4.30 ($4.25)
Ladbrokes: Labor $1.22 ($1.22); Coalition $4.25 ($4.25)
TAB: Labor $1.25 ($1.22); Coalition $4.00 ($4.25)
bet365: Labor $1.22 ($1.20) Coalition $4.20 ($4.60).
Neds: Labor $1.22 ($1.22); Coalition $4.25 ($4.25).

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And now for our brand-new daily segment, our choice of the best piece of xcreta plopped on some pollie’s head on the hustings yesterday (Thursday).

And here’s our first winner, Not_so_Jolly_Swagman, etc.

Ouch! What creative, hurtful, graphic, illogical but somehow also accurate words flung way out of left field.

The award today goes to Chris Kenny, one of the stable of Righters at the Murdoch media’s national broadshit The Australian.

He gets the gong for his judgement of Peter Dutton as the clear winner of Wednesday night’s leaders’ debate on ABC TV. (below)

He declared that Dutton “landed plenty of blows tonight and won handsomely”.

Kenny – who even peppered his review of the debate with descriptions of sound effects as Dutton supposed landed those blows – was way out of step even with some of his fellow Righters at The Oz.

Simon Benson made no call on a winner and left it up to voters to decide, and even Judith Sloan said: “Both leaders performed creditably with no clear winner.”

Greg Sheridan took the same position, saying: “I scored it overall a draw, if it were a soccer match about one-all.”

The Australian‘s Troy Bramston gave the debate to the PM.

“Anthony Albanese won his second debate because he explained more of his agenda with more detail while Peter Dutton focused on attacking Labor rather than advocating Liberal policy, which has been pretty thin in this campaign,” Bramston wrote.

We wish Troy well in whatever job he takes on next.

BREAKING OVERNIGHT: Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has lashed out at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s announcement that if re-elected, he will direct the Bureau of Meteorology to ditch the practice of alternating cyclones with male and female names and that BoM must call all such destructive events Cyclone Malcolm from now on in the hope that they will always turn out to be complete fizzas.

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