Politics live: Bill Shorten recovers from Malcolm Turnbull's 'sycophantic' sledge

Okay, end of the day, end of the week. What happened?

• Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has doubled down on his personal attacks on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten;
• the opposition spent question time focussing on who would lose out under the government's welfare changes;
• but the government was more interested in criticising the opposition's energy policy;
• part of this involved Treasurer Scott Morrison bringing a lump of coal into the chamber;
• Mr Turnbull also introduced legislation to tighten up politicians' entitlements; but
• government senator Ian Macdonald is opposing one of the reforms - the axing of the gold class travel pass.

My eternal gratitude to Alex Ellinghausen and Andrew Meares who are always so wonderful and to you for reading and commenting.

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Alex, Andrew and I will be back next week. Until then - stay cool.

"Public servants have much more power than politicians...and they affect the lives of every Australian," Senator Macdonald says.

He wants the body the Prime Minister has proposed to oversee entitlements to also examine expenses of public servants.

Interviewer David Speers asks Senator Macdonald why the pass should stay, particularly when the government is cutting other areas of the budget.

"There are examples," Senator Macdonald begins.

"I wasn't around 20, 30 years years when this agreement was struck."

He suggests that if the legislation does go through then the pass should be taken away from former prime ministers as well.

Senator Macdonald says no policy should be applied retrospectively and that doing so would be "anathema" to him.

(It's funny but I don't remember Senator Macdonald being upset about retrospectivity when the Coalition was considering taking paid parental leave away from women who were already pregnant.)

Senator Ian Macdonald is being interviewed on Sky News about his opposition to the abolition of gold class travel pass.

He says he doesn't want to go into why because of the "hate mailers" and "commentariat".

Senator Macdonald says keeping the pass would be fair for "a couple of dozen elderly people who had a deal".

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has been speaking to Sky News.

He is impressed with the new, punchier Prime Minister and says at some point you have to "fight back".

Mr Dutton also raises leadership - but in relation to Mr Shorten saying frontbencher Anthony Albanese would go for the Labor leadership "in a heart beat".

Not according to everyone but anyhoo:

Funnily enough, after all that talk of energy in question time, photographers have been invited down to record Mr Turnbull addressing cabinet's energy committee.

Hmmm, I wonder why that could be?

Meanwhile, Australia Post chairman John Stanhope has been asked to justify the high salaries at Australia Post to a Senate estimates committee in two weeks' time. 

It comes two days after the Communications and Environment Committee released details on Tuesday about executive remuneration at the government-owned business, which showed its Australia Post boss Ahmed Fahour received a package worth $5.6 million in 2015-16.

That should be enjoyable.

Mr Turnbull dismisses Mr Bandt as "a member of a protest movement".

"I am the leader of a nation," Mr Turnbull says.

"I can imagine no step that would put Australia's national security more at risk than adopting the policies of the Greens."

"We will not have a bar of them."

Greens MP Adam Bandt has a question for the Prime Minister.

"The new United States President Donald Trump appears to be dangerously unhinged, has a sycophantic relationship with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and is surrounded by far-right ideologues who seem hell-bent on war, including in our region."

"So far, Australia has followed the United States into every war every time they've asked. Prime Minister, can you understand why Australians are now worried that they may wake up one morning to find that you have committed Australia to another American-led war?"

"Given how dangerous Donald Trump is, will you commit to supporting the Greens' bill to require a Parliamentary debate and decision before Australia follows the US into their next war?"

You can catch up on Senator Macdonald's defence of pollies' perks here.