Post-shark, Happy Days continued for a further six seasons. But the scene was so cartoonish and ridonculous that when people looked back on the series, the jump episode was regarded as the beginning of the end. ''Jumping the shark'' has become a term to describe points of irrevocable decline both on TV and generally.When Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah's couch declaring his love for Katie Holmes, he jumped the shark on his public image.

This week, Federal Parliament leapt the big scary fish. It started like this: on the back of Labor arguing that Tony Abbott was anti-women, a series of texts authored by a government backed (former) speaker of the House of Representatives were reported. Some of the texts were not just rudely offensive about women, they were bizarrely so. They also inadvertently coined the insult of the month: ''botch''. (I believe that this can be used as either a noun or a verb, i.e. ''he really botched that up.'')

As a result of the icky sexist texts, we had Abbott in Parliament, calling for Peter Slipper to be sacked. In the process, the Opposition Leader happened to mention that the Gillard government was dying of ''shame'' (later reasoning that he had forgotten all about the ultra-sensitive father dying/Alan Jones connection).

The Prime Minister saw Abbott's indignation and raised him a fiver. Julia Gillard launched into a monologue of fury - more commonly known as ''you don't need a motion, you need a mirror'' - railing against Abbott's misogyny and sexism, both past and present.

But despite her gender agenda, Gillard and her crew did not vote to give Slipper the slip. It turned out, that was up to Slipper himself. Hours later, Pete pulled the pin - emotional as all get up - for the good of the Parliament. His announcement followed private talks with Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor and Anthony Albanese (all strong supporters of volunteering in Australia), but Slipper insisted the decision was his.

Indeed, with Slipper going by speech, not vote, MPs congratulated themselves that the dignity of the Parliament had somehow been restored. The week rocked on.

The next day, Gillard's speech earned many a rave review - right on sista! - at home and overseas. Indeed, it may be the first (and only time) that an Australian prime minister has been referred to as ''one badass motherf----r'' in the mainstream press.

But Julie Bishop - the Coalition's most senior female - was not happy, Julia. Standing by her man, she instructed Gillard to apologise to ''all the women'' in Abbott's life who love him. The other Bishop (once slated to be Australia's first female PM) argued Gillard had in fact demeaned every woman in Parliament: ''If you take leadership you must exercise leadership and if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.'' A funny thing to say when you think about it … since that fruit bowl picture, everybody knows the PM doesn't cook!

As for Abbott? He showed no signs of admonishment, telling Gillard to stop playing the gender card, even though he had been playing that very card himself.

Some people in the press gallery didn't dig Gillard's speech either, because they thought her attack had perhaps come from a political place not a personal one. How could she use girl power to deflect criticism of a seriously on-the-nose Labor appointee?

This analysis was duly bollocked for being out of touch with Australia and for patronising the population with ''context''. Somewhere, democracy stopped sipping its latte for long enough to say, ''Hey cats, it's cool to have different opinions. I mean, seriously, that's half the point.''

But with both sides of politics accusing the other of sexism, unfairness, double-standards, hypocrisy, offensiveness and dud-judgement, by now the nation's noodle was all tangled up and in serious pain. Those in the feminist camp may have been yeehahing that for once, sexism was being ''debated'' in the Federal Parliament as a mainstream issue. But was anyone happy about the actual product? I've seen mud wrestles that were more intellectually edifying (and yes, I have seen mud wrestles).

Then, when everyone decided they'd had well and truly enough, a comedian hired by a union made a yuck joke about Abbott and his chief of staff. Granted, a month ago, it may not have raised hackles, but in the context of the week's ''debate'' there were fears sexism had struck again. Particularly when some Labor MPs in attendance did NOT leave the function in protest or call the CFMEU quick enough to complain.

It was just a pity that by now, the shark was too tired to notice.

Judith Ireland is a Canberra Times journalist.