Federal Election 2022: James Weir recaps the second leaders’ debate

The second leaders’ debate spun out of control last night on Channel 9 as Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese clashed - but one insult took it to the next level.

The second leaders’ debate spun out of control last night on Channel 9 with the two men who are competing to lead our country completely disobeying the rules.

Despite repeated stern warnings they hijacked the broadcast to engage in a never-ending shouting match that left the host wishing bosses had just gotten one of the Lego Masters contestants to do the job.

Out of the three debates, the one on commercial TV is always the loosest. The only surprise here is that, even though it was on Nine, Karl Stefanovic wasn’t involved.

And, to be honest, we kinda wish he was. Because then there’d be a reason for why everything went off the rails so disastrously.

Steering the ship were all the sensible Channel 9 personalities. The nerds. 60 Minutes reporter Sarah Abo as host. And on the panel as the question throwers were Nine’s political editor Chris Uhlmann, along with That Lady and The Other Guy.

Chris Uhlmann, Sarah Abo, That Lady and The Other Guy.

This was a Channel 9 production, which means it was produced by the same team behind Married At First Sight. And that explains all the shouting, insults and suspicious earpieces the leaders were wearing.

‘Albo, can you hear me? It’s your producer. Throw your wine at him, then leak his OnlyFans pics.’

RELATED: James Weir recaps the first leaders’ debate

Both ScoMo and Albo came into the second debate a little more hot tempered than they did at the first. It’s just that time of the campaign. They’ve finished four weeks on the road, travelling around Australia, and there’s two more to go. Coming into week five, this is really the moment where insanity sets in. And that’s what played out on TV screens last night during the debate. Both leaders cracked.

From their opening statements, the competition was fierce.

“Happy Mother’s day,” ScoMo said.

Albo immediately one-upped him. “A VERY happy Mother’s Day”.

Yowza. Albo was already in the lead. A VERY happy Mother’s Day? Sounds like he cares about mums more than ScoMo. We always suspected it, but this is confirmation.

That’s when host Sarah Abo kicked off with the first searing question.

“What can you do to reduce the cost of lettuce and, even on a day like Mother’s Day, the cost of flowers?” she posed.

With that, they were off. ScoMo crapped on. And Albo crapped on even more – so much so that he got cut off and didn’t even get to finish his answer.

Obviously the only logical answer is, instead of buying your mother a $50 bunch of flowers for Mother’s Day, just buy her a $5 lettuce.

Unsurprisingly, ScoMo won that round. Not just because he answered within the time limit, but because he also had the smarts on his campaign this week to visit a small grocery store in the seaside suburb of Melbourne’s Mount Eliza. Why? Because he wanted to get in touch with weird Aussies who don’t know how to order their groceries on the internet. That’s the kind of man Mr Morrison is.

And the grocer visit set him up to answer Sarah’s hard-hitting lettuce question phenomenally because, while addressing the nation in a live press conference from the vegetable aisle of that Melbourne supermarket, he was standing in front of a mountain of $5 lettuces. That kind of boots-on-the-ground experience with Australian life armed him with unrivalled sympathy and understanding. Mr Morrison is a man so in touch with green leafy vegetables he was able to answer Sarah’s question as if he has intimately felt the grooves and ridges of every lettuce leaf that has ever been grown in this country’s soil.

‘Lett-uce continue in government.’

Airing the second debate on Nine instead of the ABC — which fought to broadcast it — means the theatrics can be taken to the next level. So producers ran to the back shed and pulled out one of The Honesty Boxes that they use on Married At First Sight.

How does The Honesty Box work? Well, technically, you’re supposed to submit thoughtful questions on a slip of paper that will inspire honest conversation. But no one obeys this and everyone just ends up writing insults about each other.

That’s what happened at the debate.

One of the producers gave That Lady the cue and she whipped out her first insult.

“A lot of people don’t like you,” she told the Prime Minister.

Whoa. Way harsh, That Lady.

Gotcha questions have been a hot topic lately, but they might be on the way out. Now, journalists just have to throw random insults at their subject.

That Lady continued to unleash. Next, she dissed Albo’s Harry Potter glasses.

“I had a listener contact me this week to say that you used to be a radical socialist but because you have a new set of glasses, how can we believe you are a reformed man?”

Take that!

The insult was a punch to the gut for Albo. He saw stars. And we understand why it hurt. He’s feeling super self-conscious about his spectacles ever since ScoMo started referring to him as Harry Potter this week and accused him of having a magic wand. That was bad enough. But then to be teased about his specs on national television? And by That Lady?

The jabs came out of nowhere. A complete blindside. It was like Simon Cowell had suddenly joined the panel.

It stirred both leaders. We even got a little bit of the Agro Albo we’ve been seeing on the campaign trail. Guess he didn’t have time to squeeze in an arvo nap. Unlike his calm approach in the first debate, last night saw him match the PM’s smug interjections.

With both of them yelling over one another, something interesting was finally happening. We could see the headlines already, all containing words like “embarrassing!” and “fiery!” and “clash!”

He’s pointing an arm, he must be right.

Then the host had to come in and shut down the fun.

“We are giving you that (leeway) to engage,” she stated, her tone a warning that the privilege could be taken away at any time, like an Xbox.

Things were toned down when That Lady decided to put an esoteric spin on the gotcha question.

“How do you define a woman?” she posed.

The two grown men whose chests were still puffing up and down after the Xbox squabble scrunched up their faces.

“An … adult woman,” Albo shrugged.

That Lady stared at him. “An adult woman?”

“Yes,” Albo gave a firm nod, not daring to say anything more than a dictionary definition. “An adult woman.”

And ScoMo?

He squinted. “An … adult female.” Practically stealing the opposition leader’s answer, it was as if the PM tried to make it look like his own homework by googling synonyms for the word “woman”.

Both answers were technically correct. The panel also would’ve accepted “someone who likes Sandra Bullock movies and yells, ‘Cute!’ every time they pass a Fiat”.

Well, That Lady’s question really sucked the air out of all the bickering. And in the studio control room, a team of television professionals were working hard to gas up this debate into being a television event.

“Slag off his glasses again,” a producer whispered into ScoMo’s earpiece.

“Say something about his raw curry,” another whispered into Albo’s.

What followed was a shouting match that rambled on for minutes about China and left us wishing they’d both just go back to answering Sarah’s first question about Mother’s Day lettuces.

Two leaders at work.

“Mr Morrison! Mr Albanese!” the host yelled over the two leaders. “That’s enough!”

But there was no point. The debate was off the rails and the lunatics were running the show.

The embarrassingly fiery clash led Albo to yell his favourite new catchphrase.

“That’s an outrageous slur!” he called out, when the PM asked how the Labor leader would “stand up to China when some of the loudest voices on being pro-Beijing come from your party”.

“That’s an outrageous slur!” he repeated.

Moments later, it got another run. “That’s an outrageous slur!”

Albo found success with this catchphrase during the first debate and clearly liked the zing of confidence he felt while belting it out. But that’s the thing about catchphrases – you can’t overuse them, otherwise they just get stale. Pretty soon, “That’s an outrageous slur!” will become the political version of, “Wazzzuuuppp?”

He continued to yell it as the PM yelled back. Eventually, enough time passed and the cameraman started giving the wind-up signal.

“That’s it?” a defeated Sarah Abo asked no one in particular, as she realised it was finally over. “That’s it. … We’re … done?”

Oh, Sarah. We are so done.

Twitter, Facebook: @hellojamesweir