A newbie to federal parliament, Liberal Christian Porter, likened the speaker’s job being a dog walker, but with 150 dogs on leads.



Porter, a former WA treasurer, was sympathising with speaker Bronwyn Bishop after a fairly rigorous day in the chair.



He was on the money. If there was a theme for question time, it could have been the song Who Let the Dogs Out.



It was in the context of rising pressure on Bishop, her impartiality or lack thereof, the day after Labor tabled a motion to demand greater independence and asking her to refrain from sitting in the Liberal party room.



Labor was raucous and rowdy from the first question and a number of times Bishop noted that a deliberate Labor campaign of destabilisation was underway. Visibly riled at one point, Tony Abbott complained Bill Shorten was humming Rule Britannia in a nod to the prime minister’s reinstatement of knights and dames.



Noted republican, communications minister Malcolm Turnbull came to Abbott's defence. In a reference to his role as head of the Australian Republican Movement in the failed referendum, Turnbull asked Shorten: “I’m a committed republican, I was there at the barricades, where were you?”



But the chamber stopped still when the former Labor speaker and member for Chisholm, Anna Burke, leapt to her feet to take issue with the speaker’s ruling.



Christopher Pyne had used the words “deceit” and “dishonesty” and when Labor demanded he withdraw, the speaker remarked that it was language allowed in the previous parliament.



“I am loathe to take this point of order and as you will know it is within the direction of the chair what is unparliamentary, besides the word lied,” Burke said.

“If you want to impute my reputation in this previous place, then I think that is fairly baseless.”



Seeing the trouble his speaker was in, Pyne immediately withdrew.



“I gave leeway to the member for Chisholm,” said Bishop in a highly conciliatory tone. “I think as a former Speaker she is entitled to have expression, particularly in this week of freedom of speech.”



Earlier, Labor member for Franklin Julie Collins was chided for laughing.



“We seem to have a new tactic of having an outburst of infectious laughter, which I suspect may become disorderly, and I suspect it might begin with the member for Franklin. The member for Franklin is warned,” said Bishop.



“Are you ruling people out of order because they are laughing?” she was asked.



Collins was thrown out. As were fellow Labor members Terri Butler, Pat Conroy, Mark Dreyfus, Chris Bowen, Brendan O'Connor, Matt Thistlethwaite and Nick Champion.



It was that kind of day. No laughing please.

