Pity Australia’s voters: awful leaders’ debate cursed by absurd format and incoherent hectoring | Katharine Murphy

It's hard to find words for how terrible that second leaders' debate was. A genuine shit blizzard. It was the Jerry Springer of leaders' debates.

Many people watching the 2022 federal election have been in various agonies about the coarsening of our politics, and the screaming superficiality of election coverage - and those two mega trends converged in a studio on the Nine Network on Sunday night.

The debate was in a completely ridiculous format. God knows why either side agreed to it. There was precious little moderation, which meant there were lengthy periods of indecipherable hectoring between two blokes in blue suits.

I'm obsessed with politics, and will consume it in all its forms. But Sunday night was tedious. Unless you crave a bit of biff, or a bout of freestyle jelly wrestling, I'm also confident the dialogue between Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese would have been completely incomprehensible for any voter looking for information ahead of the opening of prepoll voting on Monday.

How on earth could the viewing audience keep up with such explosive incomprehension? Any time either of the two leaders became in any way adjacent to a coherent thought or a sliver of insight that might have been helpful to a low-information voter, they were either gonged off or shouted at by their opponent.

Morrison rarely stumbles over words and messages but the prime minister, held captive by the absurd format, was about as coherent and clear as a person trying to deliver a monologue while falling down a flight of stairs.

Possibly the prime minister was off his game because of the publication of two opinion polls just before the debate started that suggest the Coalition is looking at an electoral rout on 21 May, but there were periods in the debate when Morrison looked as though he might just pick up the lectern and throw it across the room.

There were other moments when it seemed just possible that a practised smirk Morrison adopts in these formats to mask his existential psychic distress could escalate into hysterical laughter at the abject futility of his Sunday evening.

For his part, Anthony Albanese tried to get a grip on something. Anything really. A glass of water. His opponent. Clarity. Sense. Punctuation. A rescue helicopter.

I think the Labor leader just gave up in the end, because what other option was there? Albanese's brain processes far too slowly to be glib in 60-second slivers. Morrison is a glib grand master, but neither of these two knew they were entering the glib Olympics, so neither of them had conditioned to hit peak performance.

Not content with dishing up a public affairs atrocity badged as an election debate, Nine then purported to deliver an after-match viewer verdict, via a QR code, that gave the debate wash-up the atmospherics of a late-night binge on the shopping channel.

Because I didn't try the QR code myself, I'm unclear whether viewers got a set of steak knifes or a magnum of eau de toilette with their vote. To save my sanity I had muted by then - but as I glanced up periodically at my television I could see the figures kept changing, which seemed on brand with the whole production.

Win, lose, draw - does any of it matter?

Were there any highlights? Insights?

I think Morrison said sorry for something. This might have felt weighty in other circumstances given he doesn't say it very often. I think Albanese yelled "that's an outrageous slur" a couple of times. I'm not sure what that was about and I'm close to 100% confident that it doesn't matter.

Apart from the apology, I think Morrison blamed either international factors or Albanese for most things. There was a particularly surreal exchange about the federal integrity commission when the prime minister (who had pointblank refused to introduce legislation giving effect to his own election promise) berated his opponent for not having any legislation from opposition, when Morrison (still in government, last I looked) could have put his own legislation in the parliament for a vote.

I believe Morrison also accused Albanese of hiding in the bushes. It wasn't clear which bushes. I suspect but do not know they were metaphorical bushes. Albanese was asked what he'd do for young people and words followed. My recollection is not great words.

This could be funny, of course, and perhaps if I wasn't so worried about the state of democratic discourse and the media's role in safeguarding it I might have laughed. But I don't think laughing is the right response.

It's hard to know what the two leaders will have made of it. Probably neither will give it much thought, because something so pointless can't possibly be material.

But if I were them, with the vote for independents and micro-parties threatening to reach new highs in this contest, I'd be pretty annoyed at being thrust into televisual End Times on the night before prepoll opens.

If I had any aspiration to lead the country, I'd want my time to be worth something, and I'd also want an opportunity to confirm something other than people's worst instincts about major-party politics.