Question Time descends into personal attacks and vitriol
Updated
It's a good thing the Parliament House coffee shop, Aussies, sells throat lozenges to ease the discomfort of the building's occupants.
After today's Question Time in the House of Representatives, stocks would be getting low.
"Are you hungover?" Labor's employment spokesman Brendan O'Connor asked Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce.
From there, the session fell further down the rabbit hole of personal slurs and vitriol until it became something of a policy-free zone.
Mr Turnbull hit back at every question about whether his Government was out of touch with the general population on company tax and penalty rates by raising Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's past as a union leader and trying to tie him to secret deals.
"We're talking about character, conviction and commitment, and the Leader of the Opposition lacks them all," Mr Turnbull bellowed.
Labor took aim at Mr Turnbull's personal wealth and his harbourside mansion.
Mr Shorten lobbed at the PM: "Do you even know what the minimum wage is?"
From there, ministers and their shadows sidled up to the despatch box to take their turn in the mud pit.
Eight MPs were booted out by a grumpy Speaker, Tony Smith, whose unenviable task is to bring some level of decorum to the rowdy chamber.
Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus dredged up ghosts of litigation past, mentioning the Prime Minister's role in litigation surrounding the collapse of insurance company HIH.
Mr Turnbull said making a deal in litigation was the point of the exercise.
But what would the good voters of Australia have taken out of today's display of democracy, apart from having to turn the volume down on their televisions?
Note, this is the final sitting week before the May budget.
Topics: federal-parliament, parliament, government-and-politics, australia
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