More importantly, the news media have no right to be picking winners in advance. Regardless of what politics geeks know is likely and unlikely, in theory any of the party leaders could be PM (or co-PM?) after an election. So any leaders debate should be inclusive of all of them, to avoid prejudicing the result.

Sure, they can't include every registered party, they wouldn't all fit on the stage. But they could set a reasonable cutoff, like polling over 3% in at last 3 election year polls.

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