A few hours after the Prime Minister's uncomfortable radio interview, it was Labor's turn. This time the interrogator was Ben Fordham.
Here we are again. Another day of politics.
There is plenty to get stuck into today, with the government's drought approach under fire, One Nation on some sort of strike and the never-ending China debate revving up again.
Read on for all the latest news from Canberra.
Greens MP Adam Bandt tried to suspend standing orders so parliament could declare a climate emergency.
The government, of course, has a majority in the House, so the attempt was always doomed to fail. And fail it did, by a margin of 72-65.
As you were.
We have spent quite some time today talking about Scott Morrison's rough interview with Alan Jones, on the subject of drought assistance for farmers.
It's only fair then that we give Labor the same treatment.
The opposition's agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon joined Ben Fordham on radio this afternoon.
Mr Fitzgibbon started by addressing Mr Morrison's sledge during Question Time – he labelled the Labor MP a "dill".
"You know you're under the Prime Minister's skin when he reverts to language like that. It's just schoolboy stuff. And of course, on Alan Jones' program this morning he had more sidestep than Joey Johns," Mr Fitzgibbon said.
I would have gone with Mark Gasnier, personally. Great right-foot step step on that one.
OK, on to the policy stuff. Fordham asked what Labor would do differently to help struggling farmers if it were in government.
"What would I do? What I wouldn't have done six years ago is stall -" Mr Fitzgibbon said, before Fordham jumped in.
"No no no, just focus for me. Focus for me on what you would do," the host said.
"But this is important, Ben. Just a sec. He stalled the drought reform process, he even abolished -" said Mr Fitzgibbon.
"No, Joel, I'm asking you a question, I want you to answer it. What would you do? I don't want to hear about what you wouldn't have done six years ago," Fordham interjected.
"There are four foundations to this. First, you properly address mitigation. Emissions are rising every year under this government, and even if only under the precautionary principle, we have to get those emissions down," said Mr Fitzgibbon.
"No, what would you do to help the farmers who are struggling in the drought right now?" Fordham said, interrupting again.
"I'm getting there," Mr Fitzgibbon promised.
"The second foundation or pillar is adaptation. We need to invest the money needed to help people change their behaviour, both on farm with issues like water efficiency and soil health."
"But Joel, I've got to jump in. Because the criticism of the Prime Minister this morning on Alan Jones' show from a lot of his listeners focused on the here and now. What are you doing here and now to help those farmers. So can you answer that? What would you do here and now that the Prime Minister's not doing?" Fordham pressed.
"And the third pillar is infrastructure investment, including water infrastructure. They've been saying for six years they're going to build dams. They still haven't built a dam," Mr Fitzgibbon said.
"And the fourth pillar is you've got to have income support Ben. You've got to have a welfare payment for those farmers in their sixth, seventh and eighth year who have viability, but they can't survive in the middle of the worst drought in our history.
"Farm Household Allowance is really hard to qualify for. Too hard for many farmers. And now he's just cutting them off Ben.
"It's the greatest act of bastardry I've seen from a commonwealth government in the history of the federation. It's a callous act."
So after all that, Fordham got Mr Fitzgibbon to make a firm commitment – that Labor would not kick anyone off the Farm Household Allowance until the drought was officially declared over.
Shadow Foreign Minister Penny Wong delivered an interesting speech at the Australian Institute of International Affairs yesterday, focusing on our relationship with China, which she said had entered a "new phase".
She just followed up on that speech in an interview with Sky News political editor David Speers.
Ms Wong suggested the government had no consistent strategy for dealing with China – or indeed for foreign policy in general.
RELATED: Government tone towards China hardens
She referred to comments Peter Dutton made about China at a press conference on Friday.
"My concern about Mr Dutton's intervention is really my concern about much of what the government is doing on foreign policy. Is there a plan? Was there actually a plan for the Home Affairs Minister to go out there?" Ms Wong said.
Speers pointed out that Mr Dutton's comments were, in substance, quite similar to Ms Wong's yesterday.
"I didn't just go out and do a press conference where I decided to create a domestic political debate. It was a considered speech," she said.
Citing another example, she accused Scott Morrison of contradicting his own ministers when he railed against "negative globalism" in a speech two weeks ago.
RELATED: Morrison takes aim at coercive globalism
"Mr Morrison went to the Lowy Institute, talked about negative globalism, and talked about international organisations controlling what we do. Just a month before, (Foreign Minister) Marise Payne gives a speech talking about how wonderful and important multilateralism is to Australia," said Ms Wong.
"Now she's right, and she's actually reflecting a foreign policy tradition which has been pretty consistent. But Mr Morrison goes out and says something that is completely different.
"What is the strategy when you've got ministers saying one thing and the Prime Ministers saying something else?"
Parliament has passed legislation to establish the government's First Home Loan Deposit Scheme.
You might recall this policy from the election campaign. It will allow some first home buyers on low and middle incomes – 10,000 of them per year – to buy a home with a deposit of as little as 5 per cent.
To be eligible, you need a taxable income of $125,000 or below (for singles) or up to $200,000 (for couples).
Greens leader Richard Di Natale has urged the government to allow its MPs a free vote on whether or not to declare a "climate emergency".
During an interview with Sky News, Mr Di Natale also defended climate change protesters from the charge they might be "overdoing" the argument and alienating some voters.
"We're in no danger of overdoing it. We're in no danger of that," he said.
"Right now, we are a million miles away from even the smallest steps towards addressing what is a climate crisis.
"The challenge right now is that the future’s in our hands. We have the potential to change this. We have a very small window.
"It’s only governments, and particularly this government, that’s holding things back."
Mr Di Natale said there was a "long and proud history" of regular people "coming together, organising, protesting and engaging in civil disobedience".
"When there is an injustice being perpetrated, when governments refuse to act, it’s people taking action into their own hands," he said.
Some of those people gathered outside Parliament House earlier today. Kym Smith snapped these photos.
It took a good 45 minutes for the drought issue to blow up during Question Time, but hoo boy, blow up it did.
Scott Morrison fielded a question from Labor's Shadow Agriculture Minister Joel Fitzgibbon and promptly turned it back on him, labelling him a "dill".
"When will the Prime Minister admit his Future Drought Fund hasn't delivered, and will never deliver, one cent directly to desperate farming families?" Mr Fitzgibbon asked.
"The question that has just been posed by the member for Hunter once again demonstrates his complete lack of understanding of the policy issues that funding seeks to address," Mr Morrison replied.
"The Future Drought Fund is not to provide direct financial assistance payments to farmers. It's there to provide direct support for water resilience projects, to fund for the future.
"If the member for Hunter doesn't think it's a good idea to invest in water resilience for the future of Australian agriculture, he should leave the post of spokesman for agriculture immediately, because he doesn't understand one of the most fundamental elements of agriculture in this country, which is you provide water!"
After a brief interlude as Speaker Tony Smith told Mr Fitzgibbon to stop interjecting, the Prime Minister escalated his mockery.
"When there is a drought, it means there is not water," he explained, as though speaking to a particularly dumb five-year-old.
"If he took the time to understand what the Future Drought Fund was for, rather than seek to play petty politics with this, he might understand that funding is there to provide for future water resilience.
"I would appeal to the member for Hunter to support the government initiatives reaching out to farmers, and stop being such a dill."
I must confess, for two glorious letters there, I genuinely thought (hoped?) he was going to say something else.
The Reserve Bank has published its board minutes from the meeting on October 1, where it decided to cut the cash rate to 0.75 per cent.
Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers has leapt on those minutes, which contain some worrying assessments of the Australian economy.
"Year-ended growth had slowed to 1.4 per cent, the lowest outcome in a decade. nevertheless, there had been a pick-up in quarterly GDP growth over the first half of 2019 compared with the second half of 2018," the board noted.
"Growth in household disposable income had been subdued.
"Looking ahead, job vacancies and advertisements had declined, suggesting that employment growth would probably moderate over the subsequent few quarters.
"The ongoing subdued growth in wages implied that there continued to be spare capacity in the labour market."
Those are the parts Labor has seized on.
"Collapsing confidence and weak growth are the inevitable consequence of a Liberal government which has a political strategy but not an economic policy," Mr Chalmers said.
"Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg have recklessly left the Reserve Bank to do all the heavy lifting in the face of worsening home-grown economic challenges and increasing global risks.
"Right when Australians need and expect a plan from the Morrison government to get the economy going again, all they get instead is finger-pointing, blame-shifting and wedge politics."
There's a little finger-pointing happening from both sides here.
Anyway, we recently spoke to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg about the economy, and asked him to explain why the government was opposed to more economic stimulus. You can read that here.
Barnaby Joyce served as the government's drought envoy, so he is well placed to comment on the debate about assistance to farmers.
He's sticking up for Scott Morrison.
"Look, I have to commend Scott for putting a billion dollars on the table for the dams and working towards that agenda. That's incredibly important," Mr Joyce told Sky News.
"Droughts, by their very nature, they're insidious, they're ongoing. You're always reviewing things. And we have made changes.
"We've paid out well in excess of $100 million in Farm Household Allowance, we've got hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars lent out in concessional loans.
"I'll just give you two simple facts. When the Labor Party was in power, this is how many people in Australia got Farm Household Allowance. It's an easy number, 367. Three-six-seven. Now we're up to about 12,000 who've had access to it. And when they were in power, they'd only sent out eight concessional loans. So you know where their heart is on this, they're the commentators, not the deliverers.
"We can always do better. No person is so proud to say you can't do a better job. But by gosh, all they ever do is comment on ours, but I'd like to see them have their own policy that they stand behind."
Host Chris Kenny pointed out that the drought was "less severe" when Labor was in power, and the criticism Mr Morrison copped today did not come from them anyway – it came from Alan Jones and his listeners.
"Drought is incredibly tough. You're never so proud as to say there's nothing more you can do. You always try your best," Mr Joyce said.
"You do it within the constraints of a budget, you do it within the mechanism – remember there are other people out there after a while who start to get annoyed with you not helping them. You have really efficient operators, who say 'Look, we're not entitled to get any help, and you're helping this group.' You get people in town, the hairdressers, saying 'What about us? We're totally reliant on the land.' Where does it stop? You see it's a hard game, when people are under the pump.
"Of course we understand, completely and utterly empathise with them. And it's easy for someone, a Pauline Hanson, to come out screaming and carrying on. That's her right. But it's harder when you've actually got to keep the bank manager happy, to make sure the money is there.
"If you just say oh to hell with it, we'll just throw the cheque book at anything in any direction, well yeah you'll be a hero for about a year and then you'll have a huge debt that you can't repay."
2GB radio has shared some of its listeners' reactions to Scott Morrison's interview with Alan Jones this morning, saying its open line went "into meltdown".
It's fair to say they were angry.
"I'm just devastated. This guy's a waste of space. I just can't believe it," said Jim.
"My blood's boiling after hearing that. I'll describe it, right. Complete failure as a Prime Minister. He's arrogant. They've been conning the public after the election," said Robert.
"As a former one-eyed Liberal, I felt like putting my fist through the radio listening to Scott Morrison this morning," said Anna.
There were more. You can listen to them here, courtesy of 2GB.
Mr Morrison defended his government's policies during the interview, highlighting more than $300 million it has made available to help struggling farmers.
He did, however, admit there were limits to the government's power.
"The government, whether it's state, federal or anyone else, we can do a lot of things to try and help people get through this. But the government can't make it rain, and it can't make life as it was before the drought," the Prime Minister told Jones.
"We both want the same thing. We want the farmers to be able to get through this drought. But we can't kid ourselves that there's a magic wand and a magic cash splash that's going to make this thing totally solved."
You can read more on their often tense conversation in the post from earlier this morning.
Oh, and as you might have expected, Labor is jumping on the backlash bandwagon. Anthony Albanese tweeted out some of the quotes from Jones' listeners.
You can expect him to bring up the issue during Question Time in an hour or so.
The PM went on the radio to talk about the drought. Safe to say people didn’t like what they heard. pic.twitter.com/i5ZycPmjns
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) October 15, 2019
At that press conference, Anthony Albanese indicated Labor would continue to use Question Time to press Scott Morrison on whether he tried to get Hillsong founder Brian Houston invited to the White House as part of his state visit last month.
Mr Houston is one of Mr Morrison's religious mentors. When the Prime Minister was in the US, The Wall Street Journal reported he had sought an invitation for Mr Houston, and been knocked back by the White House.
"I don't comment on gossip or stories about other stories," Mr Morrison told reporters when he was asked about it in Washington.
He's pretty much stuck to that line since.
"We’ll continue to hold the government to account in Question Time. It’s important that the Prime Minister can’t just walk away from questions," Mr Albanese said today.
"We asked a simple question that’s about his evasion of whether he sought to have Brian Houston invited to the White House.
"How is it that the Prime Minister thinks he can get away with saying, ‘Oh, that’s just a report in the newspaper?’ The question is, is it true or not?
"The question is why is this Prime Minister, when he’s asked questions, responding with, ‘Oh, that’s just in the bubble,’ or other prevarications, which are all designed to avoid scrutiny?"
Mr Morrison's refusal to comment suggests the story is true – it would be simple enough to deny it otherwise.
But Mr Houston has branded it "totally false news".
“I have had no invitation to the White House and I have had no discussion with the Prime Minister or anyone else about this,” he said.
“Hillsong Church received no inquiry from any party as to my details or availability.
“As far as I’m concerned this is baseless rumour and totally false news.”
RELATED: Hillsong head hits back at claim he was rejected
Peter Dutton has been accused of opening the backdoor to Chinese billionaires snapping up Aussie real estate under a controversial plan.
A union boss has come out swinging following reports some of Australia’s richest people want to cut penalty rates.
A Time Magazine illustration of the billionaire seated in the Oval Office could make him a threat in the eyes of the President, commentators have said.