EXP: Question time in federal parliament

QUESTION TIME IN FEDERAL PARLIAMENT

WHAT WE LEARNED:

* The Department of Health is investigating ways to digitise its transaction technology for payments to what it describes as a more consumer-friendly format. In plain English, that means offloading it to the private sector.

* We won't have access to the airline passenger card details of Human Services Minister Stuart Robert who is under pressure to explain what he insists was a personal trip to China in August 2014. The Chinese saw it otherwise.

* The best farmers in the world are "most definitely" in the seat of Parkes, Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce said of the western NSW region. That was a provocative statement, Speaker Tony Smith noted. Especially to Barnaby's own farming constituents in neighbouring New England.

WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WANTED TO SPIN:

The only way our children and grandchildren can be assured of good, well-paying jobs in the future is if we are more innovative, more productive, more competitive, more technologically advanced and sophisticated, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull trumpeted.

WHAT LABOR WANTED TO TALK ABOUT:

Anything that could nail Stuart Robert to a cross.

YOU SAID WHAT?

"Peter Allen used to sing of the Tenterfield Saddler and we should sing of the Pakenham Haberdashery," Malcolm Turnbull sang the praises of the McMillan electorate in response to a question about small business from veteran Liberal MP Russell Broadbent.

TOP TWEET:

"Haven't we been here before? The long walk to the dispatch box, the camera clicks, the stonewalling response," Labor MP Ed Husic's observation of Stuart Robert.