Question time in federal parliament

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM QUESTION TIME IN FEDERAL PARLIAMENT

* Light blue ties - a favourite of Tony Abbott - are no longer the fashion on the government frontbench. Peter Dutton wore one in keeping with his support of the dumped Liberal leader.

* Including more women in cabinet cannot happen instantaneously, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told Palmer United Party leader Clive Palmer who called on the PM to introduce a 40 per cent minimum quota for both male and female ministers.

* Palmer has some money on him. The under-siege mine owner had time to count a wad of five and 10 dollar notes.

* The PM confirmed the Australian Federal Police had "sought the assistance" of ministers Christopher Pyne and Wyatt Roy, and stood-aside minister Mal Brough over its investigation into the procurement of former Speaker Peter Slipper's diary.

WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WANTED TO TALK ABOUT

Why Australia needed a building and construction industry watchdog and why its re-establishment would be good for the economy.

WHAT LABOR WANTED TO TALK ABOUT

Its commitment to fund the final two years of the Gonski schools funding plan and whether the government would match it. Spending more money didn't necessarily get you better outcomes, Turnbull responded citing an "absolute and relative" decline in student performance between 1988 and 2012.

THEY SAID WHAT

"Perhaps she might help us understand those on the opposite side," Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce said of Liberal MP Sharman Stone who he noted had studied anthropology.

TOP TWEET

"The #qanda leather jacket has disappeared along with support for climate action, marriage equality & the republic," Labor MP Tim Watts observes about the PM.