Malcolm Turnbull was swept up in the rhetoric of an attack on the construction unions and his doomed industry reform legislation to be put to a joint sitting of the two chambers of parliament that he forgot to offer words of sympathy for the close on 20 members who lost their seats under his leadership.

Shorten was bombastic. Turnbull was ungracious. Both were endeavouring to shore up their leadership against challenges from their supporters. Neither emerged unblemished, Shorten because he recovered his political fortunes with an unfounded assertion that Turnbull would privatise Medicare, and Turnbull for the lacklustre rhetoric of his campaign. If he had delivered his speech about trade unions and the need to uphold the rule of law before polling day he might have done better.

At time of writing, it looked as though the Coalition would hang on with a majority of one or two, instead of 21. He will nevertheless not be able to govern. Shorten made that clear during the eight weeks of the campaign. Measures intended to lower the budget deficit, which he called zombie legislation, will be blocked.

Our country has become ungovernable. What about the national interest, Barrie Cassidy asked of the ALP. He got no answer. Laurie Oakes, who has never been accused of being conservative in his inclinations, seemed more conscious of the disaster into which the voters have plunged us than with exploiting what journalists call a “good story”.

So why has this happened? At least in part because the adversarial basis of our legal and political system has not been understood. Television has made it worse by turning the political process into a show, and people don’t like it. The media reports personality not policy, trivialising politics further.

But most of the blame must fall on our bizarre electoral system of preferential voting. Candidates win the poll but fail to win the seat because a minor party awards its preferences to the second place-getter. A dozen or more Senators will owe their places because the quota system awards partial quotas to “preferred” candidates, who are usually preferred because they are neither ALP, in the case of coalition lists, or coalition in the case of ALP lists.

Then there are hundreds of thousands of Muslims fleeing their own revolutions but bringing with them that very terrorism. That explains the unexpected British vote to leave the European Union, and the Republican nomination of Donald Trump. We worry here, and the reassurances make it worse.