(Image: Private Media)

I heard a couple of old blokes going at it hammer and tongs last night. Albo and ScoMo. Sounded like they were coming to blows. Unusual for Morrison. On a Sunday he normally does his bellowing in a church. But turns out it was all on the telly!

If you want to take a helicopter view of Channel Nine’s brawlathon last night you might legitimately conclude it was the dismal endpoint of a decaying two-party political system. And the winner would be… the teal independents. Thank you, ScoMo (and to a lesser extent, Albo). You are the gift that keeps on giving for those who want to rejuvenate democracy.

There was plenty of outrage among viewers — well, at least those who use social media — about how messy and out of control it was. Three journalists. Two candidates. One moderator. Zero control.

To be fair to the broadcaster, it does seem reasonable to allow the prime minister and the opposition leader to self-regulate. It’s not childcare after all. But Morrison broke that arrangement early and it unravelled from there. This was not entirely unexpected. The PM had done the same at the first leaders debate on Sky News, lobbing in questions and attacks unbidden from the moderator. 

Last night it went feral. It was hard to follow any line of argument. This offended those who continue to believe that a leaders debate is a genuine exchange of ideas, which is surely a triumph of hope over experience. But out of the brutal chaos some things emerged that might have remained hidden in a more civilised setting.

We saw — perhaps for the first time publicly — how belligerent and, well, nasty Morrison can be when under pressure. It gave us a real, unfiltered glimpse of the bullying and ruthless character described by Liberal figures including Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and former MP Julia Banks. 

We saw too Morrison’s ability to outright deny truth, such as when he claimed without blinking that he had not seen any corruption in the Liberal government. By this time surely under-threat Liberal MPs Dave Sharma and Trent Zimmerman must have been covering their eyes, only to peak out occasionally through their fingers at the unfolding horror.

On a policy level, too, the prime minister gave his backing to the fiction promoted by companies such as Uber that gig workers are actually running their own small businesses and taking control of their destinies. I have always thought that even the gig economy platform operators never actually believed this rubbish, which goes to the heart of employment insecurity and corporate responsibility. But Morrison fully endorses it.

Overall a picture emerged of a prime minister who is badly rattled — perhaps shaken by the emergence of yet more bad polling news as the Great Brawl was going to air. 

Albanese did what he has managed to do with great discipline for four weeks now: not say too much, and not even go close to entertaining ideas that could see him branded as an economy wrecker. Stop negative gearing, the biggest housing bubble rort of all? No way.

The winner of the night was arguably Nine, which hosted the debate, provided all the journalist interrogators and the moderator, and then backed it all in with another half dozen of its SMH/Age journalists providing commentary. No matter how well or badly it was done, that level of commercial hijacking is surely enough to make sure future debates are held on neutral ground.

But the natural endpoint of the debate as unregulated brawl is for the contestants to tog up and sort it out in a jelly wrestle. We might as well. That’s where we’re headed.