The Sketch: wallopers set tongues wagging

Malcolm Turnbull eyeing off Bill Shorten yesterday. Picture: AAP

Question time was brought to you yesterday by the letters AFP. Given the Australian Federal Police raid and all the National Broadband Network jokes recently, one might have expected someone to kill two birds with one stone with a coppers-to-the-premises gag. But it was not to be.

Instead, the focus was on whether Australia was now a police state. Gazing across at Bill Shorten, Malcolm Turnbull revealed himself to be a member of the No It Isn’t school of thought.

“Is he suggesting that breaches of the law, breaches of union rules should not be investigated because they’re 10 years old? That would be very convenient for the Leader of the Opposition.”

Whether that was more convenient or the timing of the raid rather depended on where you sat.

The PM turned his attentions to Brendan O’Connor, who by then had spent the best part of 24 hours in a state of barely controlled rage.

“What we saw yesterday was the member for Gorton say the government is using the power of the state to attack its political opponents,” Turnbull said. “The Prime Minister is willing to use the police like his plaything …”

It was generous of him to repeat the charges.

For variety’s sake, Tanya Plibersek had a crack at him for being “born to rule”, which Turnbull responded to indignantly: “Throughout my life, throughout my life, my wife and I have started one business after another. We created jobs. We’ve invested.”

This triggered the mass miming of violins opposite. There’s no winning some days.

Few things set off Labor quite like the PM’s pronunciation of “resolute”. It is clearly a cherished corner of the vast Turnbull lexicon, each syllable enunciated with relish. Not least the least last, which arrives on the ear not as the quotidian “loot” we’re used to but as a sumptuous “lyute”, which speaks of comfort and velvet and tinkling fountains and liveried footmen and trained flamingoes and smoked pheasant tongue. It is beautiful to hear a word so loved, yet Labor hearts are not so sentimental.

“Mr Speaker,” Turnbull all but sighed, “the members on the other side can mock and scoff as much as they like.” This invitation proved almost too much for Terri Butler, who laughed so hard she looked to be in danger of a cardiac event.

Despite these moments of levity, all roads led back to the wallopers. Could the PM, demanded Tony Burke, guarantee Employment Minister Michaelia Cash hadn’t tipped off media before the raid?

“The real question here,” said Turnbull, steering things back to the donation the AFP was chasing. Labor begged to differ.

By the time Burke tried to suspend standing orders, fatigue was setting in and Tim Wilson let forth a cri de coeur: “This is sad and pathetic.”

But amid it all, a fleeting moment of sweetness. As everyone left their seats during a division, Sarah Henderson correctly took advantage of the moment to raid colleague Ross Vasta’s superbly stocked and suddenly undefended lolly drawer.