Weren’t we all just… umm… struck by the recent Four Corners blockbuster starring Michael Lawler and Kathy Jackson?

Ms Jackson is the former Health Services Union national secretary who blew the whistle on former HSU bosses Michael Williamson and Craig Thompson for rank corruption. Yes, but then she was ordered by the Federal Court to hand back the $1.4 million she took from the union- without entitlement – after her union members rose up against her.

Mr Lawler is her partner of nine years, the high and mighty jurist appointed Vice President of the Fair Work Commission by then Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott in 2002. He’s been under the pump for taking nine months sick leave from the industrial tribunal in order to work on Jackson’s case.

And Four Corners? That’s the little ABC programme set to score a Gold Walkley for getting this pair to reveal the totally bizarre alternative universe they live in.

The ABC’s Caro Meldrum-Hanna managed to get the couple to spill their guts in the most amazing fashion. And then she got Lawler to show us how he sneakily recorded phone conversations with Fair Work Commission President Iain Ross without his consent. Not to mention the video diary Lawler recorded where he spent five hours straight describing the mass conspiracy against him and his beloved. Meldrum-Hanna opened up to us a sumptuous – and deeply disturbing – world of paranoia, narcissism and shamelessness. Considering Jackson’s documented mental health issues, it’s not hard to wonder whether the ABC was showing proper duty of care. But you wouldn’t accept $100 to stop watching it.

So what does rummaging through this kooky pair’s drawers add to the public debate around trade union corruption? Well, for one thing, it makes a rather good case for a Royal Commission.

The politics of this Royal Commission haven’t been handled at all expertly. But – with just a drop of President Turnbull’s magic behind it now – nobody can discount the important work it’s been doing over recent weeks exposing the muck at the top of the union movement. Further claims of shady side deals between the AWU and Cleanevent has put Bill Shorten under the spotlight (again) and the CMFEU has been forced to merge with the Maritime Union to cover their increasing legal costs.

This is a commission that gets results. Forget Dyson Heydon and the Liberal lawyers’ lunch he never attended. When you look at the CMFEU/AWU revelations and the Jackson/Lawler saga, who could deny we need a huge clean-up of trade union governance in this country?

The mad conspiracy theories were enthralling as was Lawler saying he was definitely not ‘c***struck’ by Kathy Jackson (aren’t we still shocked that one got past the ABC censors? Surely a world first in current affairs discourse). But the most interesting observation in the documentary came from Jackson’s successor as HSU supremo Chris Brown. When asked by Meldrum-Hanna whether the the union’s branch committee had been neglectful or incompetent in allowing Jackson’s entitlement claims (that Joan of Arc of poor hospital cleaners really needed that luxury trip to Paris), he said: ‘I think at the time… not just the HSU but other unions at the time did not have proper governance procedures.’

If the Royal Commission can come up with sensible recommendations to reform and improve trade union governance practices, that can only be a good thing. And luckily Turnbull seems keen – according to the swathe of 61st birthday interviews he did – to embrace an industrial relations reform agenda if need be at the next election.

He’s committed to pushing forward with Heydon’s ultimate findings and the Registered Organisations Bill which would enforce transparency for all unions. Turnbull also may bring back John Howard’s ABCC, a measure which worked to keep the peace on our volatile building sites. And the last time I checked, Little Johnny didn’t succeed in ridding the country of trade unionists. What is there to be so scared of?

But Turnbull needs to play ball with Shorten and Labor on one thing: they need to get rid of Michael Lawler.

Lawler had been a very quiet figure compared to Jackson, who’s been a fixture of news bulletins for nearly four years now. But boy oh boy, did he make an entrance. What was worse? The phone conversation recordings which inspired a thousand copy cat photos on Twitter? The astonishing house purchase with his dementia-ridden mentor’s money? That video diary and the mad-sounding musings about ‘The Machine’? It was probably saying ‘c***struck’, huh?

Now Lawler’s claims of an evil ALP conspiracy seem slightly less fantastical when you realise the push to dump him is being led by Stephen ‘Headkicker’ Conroy. But the conduct shown by Four Corners – the secret phone recordings, the conspiracies, the obvious fact he’s taking sick leave when he’s not too sick to mount a legal defence for his girlfriend – was unbelievable. And frankly, the relationship with the old QC is like an allegory of trade union abuse of expenses. This man is being paid as we speak by the taxpayer and it should stop.

This is no time to protect Christopher Pyne’s pride over backing Kathy Jackson aeons ago. The Jackson-Lawler saga boggles the mind on so many levels but it’s paradoxically provided a bit of focus to the bigger debate about union corruption. This isn’t about the neo-liberal hordes crushing the unions. Nor is it about finding the reds under the bed (though you wouldn’t want to be Bill Shorten at the moment).

It’s about cleaning up the unions and making sure the workers get the kind of representation they deserve. This Turnbull Government must stay the course in providing a plan for proper trade union governance. And the Labor Party needs to remember the old Bob Hawke days where they had the balls to stand up to the Trades Hall bosses. But this Royal Commission still has a lot of good work to do though it wouldn’t hurt if it developed a little political nous along the way.

And as we ruminate about the future of the unions, let’s thank Michael Lawler and Kathy Jackson for an hour of classic telly. And let’s hope they get some help with that narcissism of theirs.