Politics live as Malcolm Turnbull faces a One Nation strike, polls, penalty rates and company tax

Time for me to wrap up. What happened?

• Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced an inquiry into power prices;
• it will be conducted by the consumer watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission;
• but the opposition wanted to talk about penalty rates;
• every question it asked in question time was on that topic; and
• One Nation's new senator, Peter Georgiou, has been sworn in.

My thanks to Andrew Meares and Alex Ellinghausen for their beautiful work and to you for reading and commenting.

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Alex, Andrew and I will be back in the morning. Until then, enjoy your evening.

All of this came about because Mr Smith was tiring of the age old tactic of trying to ask a question that had previously been ruled out of order in a slightly different way in the hope it would make it through.

So at least it was a metaphor based in knowledge. Unlike Defence Industries Minister Christopher Pyne's reference to Muriel's Wedding which promised much and delivered almost nothing.

He does fancy them.

The Speaker's reference to Holden (see 3.02 pm post) is sending a few reporters digging back through the archives for some old photographs.

Nick Xenophon thinks something is up: "It's effectively a declaration of war on regional South Australians and on Rebekha Sharkie and the team."

"It would be both illogical and spiteful if that's what the major parties were doing."

There's some suggestion floating about that the lower house seat of Mayo could be scrapped by a forthcoming electoral redistribution in South Australia.

The seat was held for a bazillion years by the Liberal Party until Rebekha Sharkie from the Nick Xenophon Team took it off Jamie Briggs last year.

The state is almost certain to lose a seat because of falling population.

And Mr Turnbull calls for an end to question time.

Over in the Senate the issue of energy is also on people's minds.

Resources Minister Matt Canavan says "we are lucky that God has given us high quality coal".

Speaker Tony Smith is getting sick of the time-honoured tactic of dressing up a question in a different outfit in the hope it will escape attention.

"You can't come along with a Holden badge, stick it on a Mazda, and call it a Holden," Mr Smith says.

The opposition continues along the path of trying to needle Treasurer Scott Morrison into something like exploding or admitting the tactic was so clever he will just say the government isn't going ahead with the full range of company tax cuts.

It doesn't seem to be bothering him.

"They were not elected to come here and disrupt the proceedings of the house," Speaker Tony Smith says as things get a bit rowdy.

Mr Morrison talks about energy prices and the government's actions to "put downward pressure on upward increases".

Wouldn't that mean you ended up in the same place?

There's a lot of talk of independent umpires from the government and defence thereof.

ICYMI - the government response to the Fair Work Commission is reported in this story.

Mr Turnbull references the Fair Work Commission before saying it will assist small businesses if Sunday penalty rates are brought into line with Saturday penalty rates. 

"It's the Labor Party that's decided to abandon small business," Mr Turnbull says.

He moves on to energy prices and securing gas supply.

Having dispensed with the niceties it's back to business as usual.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten asks Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull why he is persisting with company tax cuts at the same time as backing a reduction in penalty rates.

"I'll get to you sunshine, I'll get to you. Just hang on," Mr Turnbull promises, gesturing towards the opposition's treasury spokesman, Chris Bowen.

But first there is a condolence motion for Ian Robinson, the former National Party MP who died last week.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also has some words of warning for people in and around the area that could be affected by Tropical Cyclone Debby.

Nearly question time.

Labor isn't overly impressed with the government's energy announcement either.

Frontbencher Anthony Albanese says it's "the last bastion of desperation, saying you are going to bring in the ACCC".

South Australian senator Nick Xenophon is taking about the government's decision to get the competition watchdog onto power prices.

He says energy policy in Australia is experiencing an "existential crisis" and if someone doesn't sort it out soon then tens of thousands of jobs will be lost.