The independent said she had not yet made up her mind about whom to support in a hung parliament and would not do so before polling day.
“It depends on what happens on the negotiating table on the day,” she said.
Mr Sharma riposted it was one of the most important questions: “If you’re not being upfront with the electorate now and telling them which party you’re going to support, I think you’re being dishonest with them,” he said.
Responding to a question about why she was splitting the Liberal Party’s vote in a moderate held seat, Ms Spender said the independents were targeting people who say they are moderates, but don’t vote moderate.
“If it had been different, if moderates had really stood up on these key issues, if they had made the difference, I don’t think I would be standing,” she said.
With climate change a hot button issue in Wentworth, Mr Sharma defended his party’s 26–28 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030, and said choosing targets wasn’t a question of plucking a number “out of thin air.”
Ms Spender was quick to shoot back.
“I’m not plucking numbers out of the thin air,” she said. “I’m talking about the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] says to avoid catastrophic climate change, the world needs to decarbonise by 50 per cent by 2030.
“I’m listening to the Business Council of Australia that says it is in our economic interest to make a 46–50 per cent transition by 2030.”
Both candidates were in furious agreement in opposing the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign against Israel, and in their concern for China’s push into the Solomon Islands, though Mr Sharma criticised his opponent for linking the national security issue to climate change.
Both slammed Liberal candidate for Warringah Katherine Deves’ comments on transgender athletes, though Mr Sharma stopped short of calling for her disendorsement and defended his own voting record.
While most questions were about national issues, local issues crept in. Mr Sharma revealed he didn’t have solar panels because he had a terrace house, and didn’t drive an electric car because the government didn’t offer one.
Ms Spender said she too had neither solar panels nor an electric car, but this was largely to do with a lack of local charging stations and strata rules.
“There is a real lack of infrastructure if we want to move to electric ,which we absolutely have to, and that’s what is one of the priorities I think that we need to take forward,” she said.
