While Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton traded insults before a global television audience bigger than the population of Britain, a more uplifting exchange between Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten in the Australian Parliament went largely unremarked.
The Trump/Clinton contest was dubbed the ugliest and nastiest debate in American history for good reason, generating more than 124 million views on YouTube. In contrast, the speeches by Turnbull and Shorten were remarkable for the lack of rancour, the unity of purpose and the empty seats in the public gallery.
Twenty years after John Howard and Kim Beazley joined to support a motion celebrating the Australian values of equality, tolerance and inclusion, Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten did the same, with a similar level of eloquence and broad-brush conviction.
Back in 1996, the motion was designed to put a lid on the race debate Pauline Hanson had incited with her warning of Australia being "swamped by Asians" and complaints about handouts for Aborigines – a debate Howard had failed to nip in the bud.
This time, the catalyst was another warning from the resurrected Hanson: that Australia was in danger of being "swamped by Muslims", who account for just 2.2 per cent of the population. Just as in 1996, neither leader dignified Hanson by referring to her directly.
The Turnbull speech was similar to the one he delivered to the United Nations General Assembly last month, except that his claim that Australia is one of the world's most successful multicultural societies was over-egged. "We are the most successful multicultural society in the world," he declared.
Just as Howard lamented that Australians had been "too apologetic about our history", Turnbull observed that "we have much more of which to be proud, than self-reproaching". "The glue that holds us together is mutual respect," he said. "Our natural inclination is to welcome newcomers."
Shorten observed that the word "tolerance" doesn't do justice to the society we treasure. "We tolerate traffic jams, we tolerate flight delays, we tolerate headaches, we tolerate brussels sprouts – we embrace diversity," he said.
But two things were missing from both speeches. One was a recognition of how little has been achieved in narrowing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians since 1996, for all the reports commissioned and money spent. The other was any attempt to explain how this country's treatment of asylum seekers is consistent with the values they spoke of with such conviction.
The second omission was highlighted just after MPs voted in favour of the motion, when Immigration Minister Peter Dutton was asked a Dorothy Dixer that gave him the opportunity to ridicule his new shadow, Shayne Neumann.
Dutton seized on what he described as a "train wreck" of an interview Neumann had given to Sky News on what Labor planned to do with the "legacy" caseload of 30,000 asylum seekers who came on boats on its watch, most of whom are in the community on bridging visas.
Dutton quoted the interviewer quoting him as saying 10,000 of these people had been found to be "economic refugees" (she meant to say "economic migrants") and challenging Neumann to confirm whether Labor would give these people permanent residency – the implication being that this would demonstrate weakness.
But she was wrong and Dutton was mischievous. Barely 7000 of the 30,000 asylum seekers have had primary decisions, so it is utterly premature to assert how many will have their claims rejected.
Yes, there will be a higher rejection rate, but this may have more to do with the fact that many are in no state to present their case for protection after living in limbo for more than three years, being denied legal assistance and subjected to fast-track processing without such procedural safeguards as the right to be heard in person.
No wonder Neumann replied, repeatedly, that he would seek advice from the immigration department on the status of the legacy caseload. That was prudent, not a train wreck.
That night the ABC's Q&A; featured one of the authors of the Coalition's border protection policy, the retired general and failed Liberal Senate candidate Jim Molan, whose answers highlighted the disconnect between the treatment of the legacy caseload and those on Manus Island and Nauru and values Turnbull and Shorten so emphatically reaffirmed.
Molan's starting point was that every Australian should be "extraordinarily proud" of what Sovereign Borders has achieved, but most of his answers smacked of ignorance, arrogance and a reluctance to canvas more humane alternatives.
One of the first questions came from Amnesty International's senior director for research, Dr Anna Neistat, who has spent the last 15 years working in conflict and crisis areas including Syria and Afghanistan, but describes the situation of refugees detained by Australia on Nauru as one of the worst she has seen.
Her report on Nauru will be launched on Monday, when Four Corners will air footage of refugee children trapped on the island, including one who asks: "We're not criminals and we're not dangerous. Can you tell us why are we still here?"
"Does the success of this policy depend on subjecting people to these enormous levels of suffering and essentially keeping them hostages in Nauru and in Manus Island?" Dr Neistat asked.
Molan replied that he had never been to Nauru, but had seen enough to conclude that most Australian towns would give "their right arm" to have Nauru's "most extraordinary medical facilities". As for Manus, he said he had been there, and facilities were so far ahead of refugee camps around the world it wasn't funny.
Toward the end of the program, Shukufa Tahiri, whose father came on a boat in 1999, asked Molan about those who make up the legacy caseload and the "epidemic unfolding before the nation's eyes".
Detention, temporary protection visas, the denial of family reunion, citizenship delays, uncertainty and prolonged delays in processing were increasingly driving people into self-harm and suicide, she said, before asking if this an acceptable price to pay for stopping the boats.
"I don't connect the two. You can connect the two. I don't connect the two," he replied.
Sooner or later, the connection will be made, if not by this government by one that follows. One day, maybe not for another 20 years, a prime minister and opposition leader will rise in the Parliament to express regret that so much suffering was inflicted on so many, all in the name of protecting Australian values.
Michael Gordon is The Age's political editor.
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