By TONY WRIGHT

The guilty secret of a lot of spectators at car and motorcycle racing is that they are waiting for a spectacular crash, machinery hurtling through the air and the expectant hush as stewards rush to see if the contestants have survived.

The throatiest roar at a football game is reserved for those moments when boofy blokes try to knock each others' heads off.

And if we are honest, the only reason Question Time in the House of Representatives is compelling is the knowledge that at some stage, we will witness a massive blow-up between politicians who really hate each other.

Yes. The match-up.

The Senate has become vastly gentler since the days of Gareth Evans, Graham "Richo" Richardson and Bronwyn Bishop when she was a fire-breathing Senator.

Evidence? Yesterday, great scott, the President of the Senate actually ruled that finger pointing and finger gestures were "unparliamentary".

Such a ruling in the House of Representatives would require the main contestants to cut off their hands.

Question Time in the House has been chaotic this week, Mr Speaker chucking MPs into the street, catcalling replacing points of order, Kevin Rudd holding forth for so long that the frustration of his opponents has inevitably exploded, Christopher Pyne desperately trying to shut down Labor's attacks by moving that members "be no longer heard", the Labor and Liberal women very nearly spitting at each other, and finger pointing everywhere.

Some commentators have feigned dismay, tutt-tutting about standards of public behaviour and the waste of time and money for such tomfoolery. But it was such spectator sport that those operating Twitter accounts in the media bleachers could hardly keep up with their delight.

It has long been thus (less the tweeting), and sometimes even more transfixing.

There are still some of us left who recall the depth of loathing Paul Keating held for John Howard. It began when Keating was Treasurer and Howard was in one of his early incarnations as Opposition Leader. Liberal hardman Wilson Tuckey chose to holler about "a little girl named Kristine" - a reference to a formerly unknown and apparently dreadful relationship break-up between Keating and the said Kristine.

Keating roared that Howard would "wear his leadership like a crown of thorns" for having allowed such an interjection and very nearly foaming at the mouth, promised to "crucify" Howard. He never lost his anger, which was why, years later, Keating was utterly devastated, his life bleakened, to be beaten by Howard in the 1996 election.

And now, though it may be bargain-basement hatred compared with Keating's efforts, we are goggle-eyed at the depths of detestation on show as Rudd and Turnbull, Julia and Julie, Swannie and Hockey and a slew of others do battle in Question Time.

Joe Hockey once saved Kevin Rudd from disaster by reaching into a raging river in the Kokoda track in the steaming jungle of Papua New Guinea and dragging the sodden and shaken Kevin to sanctuary.

They were mates those days, having chuckled their way through numerous and mostly harmless squabbles on Channel 7's Sunrise program.

No more. Kevin will hardly look at Joe across the despatch boxes of parliament and when he does, it is a look that could kill. Joe, not so jolly these days, returns it, and ventured back to the old Sunrise days this week only to quote host David Koch in an attempt to skewer Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan's insistence that vast amounts of stimulus money should continue to flow. It is as if the matey days were a sort of guilty secret that has to be buried.

Kevin and Malcolm really loathe each other. Press gallery photographers can very nearly feel the heat of the mutual dislike as they focus on the two contestants in Question Time. Here are two millionaire leaders who have tried to outdo each other with their stories about childhood impoverishment and humiliation, and having chosen different sides of politics, they are still trying to outdo each other by bellowing condemnation and whispering snide remarks across the table. A lighter shade of Keating and John Hewson, who both insisted they had come from the wrong sides of the tracks before making good on different political paths. Keating, having promised Hewson he would "do him slowly" at least had the satisfaction of doing just that.

Labor's women - and in particular Julia Gillard - get the death stare from deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop when they set out to taunt her. There is rather more than a hint of class warfare in it - Bishop is seen by Labor's women as a bit too wealthy and polished, and thus an easy target. Bishop quivers with indignation at the charge that Liberal women are somehow second-rate in their party compared with the battalions of Labor women.

Such sport. Curiously, Gillard appears to have a soft spot for the tough-guy Tony Abbott, regularly bathing him in her smile. Perhaps she longs for the day he might take the leadership, so she can give him a proper kicking.

The boring years, on the other hand, were those when leaders quite liked each other. John Howard and Kim Beazley got along well out of the chamber, and hardly a verbal punch worth reporting was thrown inside.

Robert Menzies through his long years as Prime Minister was relatively polite to the mismatched Arthur Calwell. Menzies, of course, was content in the knowledge that Labor MPs hated each other more than his Liberal team.

Who now could imagine the last night at the old Parliament House before MPs moved up the hill to their current palace? John Howard threw a party (he was, believe it or not, the champion party-giver those days, with much grog and funny business going on). Howard and Bob Hawke ended up with their arms flung around each other's shoulders, singing, good Lord, The Internationale.

We won't see the like of that again. But while Kevin and Malcolm, Julie and Julia and Swannie and Joe are at each others' throats, we are unlikely to be short of entertainment, even if it is of the rather base kind.