Question time in federal parliament

WHAT WE LEARNED:

* The term "Abbott" on its own is unparliamentary, ruled Speaker Tony Smith.

* Clive Palmer did a Bob Katter by asking a largely unintelligible question of Malcolm Turnbull, noting he was Australia's third-oldest prime minister.

* Under Labor's negative gearing policy aka a "brave new world", well-heeled surgeons not teachers and nurses would benefit the most, the PM claimed.

* The PM twice avoided ruling out making retrospective changes to negative gearing. In other words, watch this space.

WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WANTED TO SPIN:

Anything, including the bombing of the Townsville agricultural station in 1942 that lent weight to its road map for Australia's defence. The white paper, released on Thursday, would make us "more powerful on land and in the skies, more commanding both on the seas and underneath them", the PM crowed.

WHAT LABOR WANTED TO TALK ABOUT:

Has the prime minister shown he's not capable of providing the economic leadership that our nation needs?

YOU SAID WHAT:

"An island nation girt by sea, as our anthem says, must have a strong navy," the PM said about the government's decision to build 12 regionally superior submarines.

TWEETED:

"Barnaby: 'The best way to protect yourself from conflict is to prepare yourself for conflict'. More sophisticated policy." - Labor MP Andrew Giles.