Leaders face off in campaign debate

TURNBULL AND SHORTEN GO HEAD TO HEAD

THEIR OPENING SPIEL

* Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull: "My government has set out a national economic plan, every single element of which will create stronger economic growth and more and better jobs for Australians in the future."

* Labor leader Bill Shorten: "This election is about a strong economy and a fair society. It is about Labor's positive plans for a strong economy and a fair society."

WHAT TURNBULL WAS ASKED:

- Will Australians see a different Malcolm Turnbull if you win your own mandate to the one that they see now?

- How can the people of Australia trust you when you deposed a sitting prime minister?

- Where is your medium-term health and education funding plan?

- Why should we believe company tax cuts will super charge the economy when most of the benefit goes to foreign shareholders?

- Can you assure Australians there'll be no change to superannuation in the next parliament?

- What's your plan to stop 1600 asylum seekers and refugees staying indefinitely on Nauru and Manus?

- What about some bipartisanship on climate change action?

WHAT SHORTEN WAS ASKED

- How can the people of Australia trust you when you deposed not one, but two, sitting prime ministers?

- Where is your medium-term health and education funding plan?

- Are you proposing to restore the $80 billion in cuts the 2014 budget made to hospitals and schools funding?

- Does Labor have a ceiling on how much tax should be collected as a proportion of the economy given you're advocating higher taxation?

- Will you rule out letting any of the people on Nauru and Manus Island being resettled in Australia?

WHAT THEY HAD TO DEFEND:

* Turnbull: Toppling a sitting prime minister; company tax cuts; coalition changes to superannuation tax concessions; his climate change action record.

* Shorten: Toppling two sitting prime ministers; why Labor won't say whether it will restore 2014 budget cuts to hospitals funding; Labor's border protection failure in government.

YOU SAID, I SAID

"It's the same old Labor - just spending."

- Turnbull.

"Same old Liberals, just give tax cuts to the top end of town and let the rest of the people make do with not much at all."

- Shorten responds.

TWEETING MPs

"Looks like Labor got to the Press Club early and got all the front row seats," coalition MP Ewen Jones.

"You'd think that in a room without any voters Turnbull should be in his element - but it's already hard to follow his message," Labor MP Tim Watts.

"Turnbull says he was born in a shoebox. Rubbish, a life of privilege, has never walked in same shopping aisle as avg Aussies," former Labor deputy PM Wayne Swan.

"Hang on, Turnbull says there's not enough $ to fund doctors or childcare, but there's enough to give the big banks a tax cut?" Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young.