We already knew long before this week that there was a crisis of politics over policy. But even allowing for that, this week in Canberra was one that surely drove voters to new depths of despair, writes Barrie Cassidy.

We already knew long before this week that Australia's political system was dysfunctional; that there was a crisis of politics over policy; and that the major parties were locked in such a brutal, self-serving contest that when one emerged a winner over the other, the country was worse for the experience.

And the public long ago lost faith in the current crop of politicians to do anything about it.

But even allowing for that, this week in Canberra was one that surely drove voters to new depths of despair.

Let's start depressingly with budget repair. The Government puts up a perfectly modest and reasonable initiative to rein in spending on pensions; a change to the assets test that will deny the payment to wealthy Australians and deliver a $15 a week increase to full pensioners.

Get The Drum in your inbox Subscribe to get The Drum delivered to your email twice a day, plus top news headlines and alerts on major breaking stories.

The Greens - yes, the Greens - sign up, and Labor opposes it. Surely the decision would have been line ball within Labor ranks; a tempting step towards much needed co-operation in the battle against runaway deficits.

But having decided to vote against it, Labor then cranked it up as the definition of evil, mounting a full blown scare campaign.

And the mirror image of that? Labor puts up a perfectly modest and reasonable initiative to rein in spending on superannuation concessions. Again, there would be many within Coalition ranks who would privately in other circumstances support such an initiative. But having decided to oppose it, they too crank up the mother of all scare campaigns.

So budget repair gives way to political opportunism. And for months to come we'll hear from Labor that the Government thinks pensioners have too much money; and we'll hear from the Coalition that it's just wrong to touch superannuation "because it's your money".

The handling of national security matters - and specifically the legislation to strip suspected terrorists of citizenship - is no better.

A leaked document this week exposed the Government's determination to wedge the Opposition on the issue.

The public is entitled to ask whether Abbott is motivated solely by the need to secure the borders and fight the terrorists, or whether at the same time, he relishes, indeed encourages, a political fight with Labor?

Polling this week suggests most Australians feel less safe than they have for a decade. The Coalition polls strongly on the issue of national security. If you are campaigning partly on the promise of keeping Australia safe, does it not suit your political objectives if Australians feel unsafe?

And how do you do that? You talk about terrorism, incessantly.

The sense that the Prime Minister is over anxious for a political fight was compounded when he instantly went on the attack over remarks by the shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus. Dreyfus, when asked how he would convict someone who is fighting in Syria, said: "We'll you get them back here, right?"

Outside Parliament and again in Question Time, the Prime Minister accused Labor of "rolling out the red carpet" to terrorists.

Any semblance of genuinely reaching out for bipartisanship - of waiting at least until he had the benefit of Labor's response to the legislation - was shot to ribbons.

But in the process, Abbott revealed the distressing internal conflicts and contradictions undermining the Government's approach.

The situation as articulated by Dreyfus is the status quo. Does that not suggest "the red carpet" has been available to terrorists all along?

And does it not suggest that sole citizens - under the Government's plan - will continue to tread that "red carpet", because by all accounts the stripping of citizenship will apply only to dual citizens?

Even on process, the Coalition internally is being knocked about. When the Prime Minister was asked in Question Time on Thursday who had seen the legislation, he answered, "the relevant ministers", rendering all but two of his frontbench "irrelevant".

And Labor too is split on process and tactics.

How is it, many of them privately ask, that Bill Shorten hasn't been able to say at least in principle that it's not good enough for a minister alone to strip away citizenship? Why can't he say in principle that for such drastic action to take place, a conviction, or at least some independent judicial judgment, should be mandatory? Are they so terrified of the issue, so cowed, that they can't draw such an unexceptional line in the sand?

How is it that Malcolm Turnbull is out ahead of Shorten on this issue, just as the Greens are out in front on fiscal repair?

Then there's the all but proven allegation that Australian officials paid people smugglers.

Shorten on Monday was full of outrage, and then on Tuesday deflated and empty.

Embarrassed by the sudden realisation that the previous Labor government had paid informers - maybe even people smugglers - he backed off.

Yet there is a world of difference between that and paying people smugglers - paying them off rather than arresting and prosecuting them - on the water in Australian territory.

The impression was left that the Government had paid off the people smugglers to avoid the boat load of asylum seekers becoming Australia's problem, so ruining the perfect "stop the boats" record.

Labor withdrew with so many questions like that still unresolved, and with the possibility - even the probability according to some international law experts - that a crime might have been committed; quite apart from the fact that two ministers had denied it ever happened.

What would Abbott have done if the situation had been reversed; if he had discovered that the Gillard government paid people smugglers to turn back boats? He would never have taken the foot off the throat, not for a second.

On top of all that, and right on cue while Parliament is sitting, the second episode of The Killing Season goes to air, exposing with the help of the key players, just how ruthless, selfish and grubby politics can be inside the Labor Party.

So in a week when we are served up powerful evidence that the Government paid people smugglers, Bill Shorten is the story because:

a) He had a train wreck of a news conference on Tuesday.

b) He then - either before or afterwards depending on your point of view - blew his parliamentary tactics.

c) He was further embarrassed by the public display of treachery in Labor's past, courtesy of The Killing Season.

d) And he then faced a fresh Fairfax investigation on his deal making as head of the AWU, to complement the considerable efforts of the News Corp stable.

All that came AFTER a poll delivered him the worst net satisfaction rating in his time as Leader of the Opposition.

Perhaps it's time for another poll on faith in the political processes. It would be off the charts.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of the ABC program Insiders. He writes a weekly column for The Drum.