Election 2022: Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese on an ugly trajectory as 46th parliament ends with a political firebomb

The ending was undignified, grinding and at times absurd. The battle-hardened inhabitants left looking hopefully to better days ahead, or pondering if the end was nigh.

The late appearance in the chamber of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, beamed in from the warzone pleading for help against the might of Russia, offered a marked distinction in the fight for survival.

But in the dying days, there has been the extraordinary sight of the Liberals eating their own. The leader, even.

The all important budget sell was hijacked with a former Liberal minister throwing a late night political bomb, declaring the Prime Minister was "without a moral compass" and "unfit to be Prime Minister".

Having lost a winnable spot in the imminent federal election, Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells even - under parliamentary privilege - raised potential corruption. Just a whiff. Just enough.

This pointed derailing, so very close to the election, is the stuff of very black political comedy.

No matter how much he smiles, Scott Morrison can't be laughing. How many adverse character assessments can he handle?

Political historian at the University of Canberra Chris Wallace describes the intervention by the senator as "specific, deliberate".

And with the Coalition needing to pick up seats in NSW to "offset losses elsewhere", Dr Wallace believes propelling the state branch's internal warring onto the front pages was designed to cause maximum carnage.

"It's really significant that it happened in the last week of parliament," she says.

"She completely derailed Morrison's plan for this week, and renewed the attention on his character shortcomings that everyone, from his own deputy prime minister to the French President, has been happy to pass with various parties.

"Her hit was direct and effective. It makes it just that much harder for the government to win."

Of course, as has been pointed out by Mr Morrison and Coalition colleagues, Senator Fierravanti-Wells is disappointed and is only saying it on the way out. But former NSW Liberal staffer Dhanya Mani, who went public with allegations of indecent assault by a colleague in 2019, says the timing of the broadside speaks to a wider, worrying problem in politics.

"It's disappointing that she didn't speak out about these issues earlier ... [but it was] a manifestation of a really tragic part of political culture," she says.

"Women don't feel that they can say what they think, and they don't feel that they can hold male political leaders to account until they have nothing left to lose."

The final ramp up to the 2022 election exudes desperation, just as people are looking for aspiration.

So much is on the line, but there has been disaster after disaster, dramas over pre-selections with candidates still being slotted in, accusations of vote-buying with the budget, deals with the Coalition to get a deal over net zero, accusations of lies, bullying, rorts, burying information.

That is before mentioning that this is a pandemic election, or that parliamentary culture is overdue for an overhaul.

And there's the completely untimely death of Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching.

Everyone misses her and no-one is exactly sure how to handle what has happened.

The media has been left sifting through snippets of her accounts, speaking to factional allies and politicians to piece together an angle.

A frustrated former Australian of the Year Grace Tame has warned, unlike Senator Fierravanti-Wells, the late senator is unable to give her own account.

"The level of intricacy of the allegations, internal politics, and biased media agendas - on top of the fact that the main subject is deceased - makes for an unsolvable mess," she tweeted on Thursday.

Anthony Albanese's political opponents appear eager to use the senator's death. Little else has stuck to the Labor leader.

But should Labor do more to address the accusations of bullying which have been put by friends and allies of Senator Kitching?

Mr Albanese said he addressed the facts that were presented by the senator when she was alive - that she only complained of being removed from Labor's tactics group.

Survivors of abuse can only see politicians hiding behind the rules. They point to the best available roadmap for change in parliamentary culture, the Kate Jenkins led "Set the Standard" review.

"Parliamentary culture is beset by denialism and a self-interested desire from the leaders of all major parties to smooth away and manage away any woman ... they think could imperil their chances of winning the election," Ms Mani says.

"It doesn't matter what process you go through, or even if you're making a complaint; there's just not a willingness to deal with you," she adds.

Can we dare that parliamentary culture improves next term?

Australia does have a good story to tell. The economy is buoyant. Unemployment is at historic lows. The budget bottom line is improving. But after all that economy-wide large scale emergency pandemic support, it is coming back from an eye-watering deficit.

It is all getting lost amid the rabble despite Josh Frydenberg's best media efforts.

The appearance is of jostling for position before we all brace, brace, brace for polling day.

"Governments do eventually expire, people stop listening, people just want an election to happen and [to] get on with the new regime," Dr Wallace says.

"There seems to be an 'I'm totally over it atmosphere' in Canberra and beyond."

What do we have to show for the past term of the Morrison government? The government is standing on its record of nine years in office, and Mr Morrison is standing on a full term as Prime Minister.

The term has been marked by lurching from disaster to disaster. Black Summer bushfires, COVID-19, floods, sexual assault allegations and a trade war with China.

But at the bottom of it all has been how the Prime Minister deals with all these diabolical moments. It has been a test.

The various polls, which have been wrong before, show the Prime Minister's personal standing deteriorating, and the ALP on course for a comfortable win. Perhaps meaningless, perhaps not.

Dialling into 6PR Radio on Wednesday night, Mr Morrison was defiant.

"We've heard all that before," he said, when pressed on his apparent, impending annihilation.

And a look over the interview transcript shows nothing unusual. All the greatest hits were there: Albanese has never delivered a budget, Labor will run down the economy.

But the tone was flat, the energy driving Mr Morrison to victory during his relentless 2019 campaign absent. You would not know there was a budget the night before, let alone one on which his political future hinges.

That transmitted to government backbenches on the last day of parliament, when raucous and, at times, angry Labor MPs contrasted starkly with the sullen faces opposite.

Mr Morrison's 2019 "miracle" has been compared to 1993, when an old government's new prime minister - Paul Keating - pulled a rabbit out of the hat.

Dr Wallace agrees that comparison is instructive, but points to what came next. In 1996, Mr Keating was wiped out.

People knew Bill Shorten and didn't like him, but had no strong feelings about Morrison, she says. Now, it's the "reverse set-up".

"If you win a miracle election, you usually lose the next time round," she says.

The pre-election budget zeroed in on the Coalition's usual target areas - tradies, small businesses owners, aspirational home owners - but there was also an attempt to lessen the damage among women.

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Dr Wallace says the Prime Minister is convinced "the bloke vote can save him", but is after a voter base that "is not enough in itself to get re-elected".

"He's lost the sensible centre that helped him squeak across the line last time, because they didn't know him and they bought the daggy dad persona," she says.

The government suggests Mr Albanese is trying to "sneak into office". The Labor leader has deliberately been campaigning as a small target, and the government has clearly been having difficulty trying to engage him.

Does Mr Albanese have a unified, disciplined team? Has Labor truly learned from the turmoil of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years? Or is he just capitalising on the "It's Time" factor?

Senator Kitching's death has resurfaced old wounds within the Labor movement and confirmed suspicions.

People are asking again whether some MPs really want the ALP to win, or would rather jeopardise the chance.

The pre-election period has already thrown up some unedifying moments. Accusations of a Manchurian candidate in parliament, digs at Albanese's weight loss.

And as an increasingly frantic government swims against the current of defeat, the race appears set on one trajectory: An already ugly campaign only getting uglier.