Labor tries PM censure over Brough

Labor is seeking a parliamentary censure of Malcolm Turnbull over the prime minister's support for embattled Special Minister of State Mal Brough.

Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus argued Mr Turnbull had ignored numerous new developments about the minister's role in the Ashby-Slipper affair, including a federal police raid on Mr Brough's home.

"What does it take for the prime minster to act - he doesn't have the judgment (to say) that enough is enough," Mr Dreyfus told parliament on Thursday.

Mr Dreyfus accused the prime minister of failing to properly enforce his standards of ministerial conduct and urged him to sack Mr Brough.

Mr Brough had made an "admission to a serious crime" during a television interview last year when he told 60 Minutes he had asked James Ashby to procure copies of ex-Speaker Peter Slipper's diary.

Since then he had repeatedly misled parliament "in a pathetic attempt to cover it up", Mr Dreyfus said.

In parliament on Wednesday Mr Brough denied he had asked Mr Ashby, a former staffer of Mr Slipper's, to obtain copies of the diary.

Labor frontbencher Tony Burke urged Mr Turnbull to act.

"The minister has misled this House three times in two days and the prime minister thinks that's okay."

The government used its numbers to gag debate and defeat the censure attempt.