There’s an exceedingly dull election happening in NSW tomorrow — and with just one day to go the leaders are finally getting punchy. As The Sydney Morning Herald reports, the Liberal bloke yesterday accused the Labor guy of being the worst Australian political leader of the 20th century:

You name me any premier in the 20th century who was in office for a decent period of time who did less…

To which the Labor chap responded that the Lib had:

Led his party at five elections and lost three of them … under his premiership, he comprehensively degraded hospitals and schools, and delivered not a single gain for environmental protection …

… and that under his leadership, all of the city’s “vitality and charm was sucked into a single Las Vegas-style casino” and that “he should go back to midnight-to-dawn radio.”

At last, Iemma and Debnam going hammer and tongs? Not quite – the two leaders quoted above are former Victorian Liberal premier Jeff Kennett and former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr.

For action, colour and passion their comments sure beat the real election campaign, a tedious ritual drawn out over the last six weeks, a campaign launched by one man in his swimwear against another whose record could hardly have been less auspicious.

If ever an Australian election pointed to the shallow gene pool that populates state politics with drones, dolts, timeservers and incompetents, this is it.