Labor has raised concerns about the tone of the Federal Parliament after Treasurer Joe Hockey said stopping the boats meant there were no longer "children floating in the ocean".

Mr Hockey was speaking in Question Time and spruiking the Government's success in stopping the flow of asylum seeker boats from Indonesia.

He was responding to a question from the shadow treasurer and former immigration minister Chris Bowen.

"I tell you what sir, that is a real Minister for Immigration," said Mr Hockey, gesturing towards his Cabinet colleague Scott Morrison.

"I remember you as minister for immigration," he said to Mr Bowen.

"There were more boats coming in than there were planes at Sydney airport.

"As the boats came in under [Labor], the boats stopped under this Minister for Immigration.

"Because the boats have stopped, we've saved $2.5 billion, we've closed nine detention centres, but most of all, as a result of the actions of this Government, there are no children floating in the ocean between Australia and East Timor, as occurred under Labor."

Manager of Opposition business Tony Burke, also a former immigration minister, immediately objected.

"On the conduct and tone of this Parliament ... after the way they voted on Malaysia, [if they] want to start running that sort of argument which we have not in return ... ," Mr Burke said.

Speaker Bronwyn Bishop stopped Mr Burke, saying he was not raising a valid point of order.

Labor believes if the Coalition had supported its deal to swap 800 asylum seekers who arrived by boat with 4,000 refugees from Malaysia, it would have acted like a virtual towback for people smugglers and reduced the flow of boats in 2011.

Labor claims Liberal MP invited 'a bit of biffo'

Meanwhile, former speaker and Labor backbencher Anna Burke raised objections after Question Time, saying Liberal MP Andrew Nikolic appeared itching for fight – literally.

"Is it appropriate for members of the Government to be inviting people to a brawl, to come on over to the other side of the chamber and have a bit of a biffo?" she said.

"I think it is stretching the behaviours and the standards a bit far when we actually have members calling people over to step outside."

Ms Bishop agreed with the former speaker.

"If there have been instances of invitations to affray, then they are quite unorderly and they will desist," she said.

But a Liberal source says Mr Nikolic was waving over Labor MP Rob Mitchell so he could better hear his "sailor-like" interjections.