Question time in federal parliament

QUESTION TIME IN FEDERAL PARLIAMENT

WHAT WE LEARNED

* Labor leader Bill Shorten has appointed Senate newbie Pat Dodson - sworn-in to parliament on Monday - as his shadow parliamentary secretary.

* Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull set the stage for a long election campaign: This is a war, a political war, that Labor wants to start against aspiration, ambition and enterprise, he told MPs.

* Greens MP Adam Bandt upset opposition MPs by asking whether we can do better on border security than the Labor-Liberal policy of not drowning, but burning? He was forced to withdraw the remark.

* Terminating the 2 per cent budget repair levy on high-income earners in mid-2017, as legislated by parliament, is not a tax cut for the rich, Treasurer Scott Morrison insisted.

WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WANTED TO SPIN

The budget, aka as the plan to continue the successful transition from the post-mining construction boom to a stronger, new, diversified economy.

WHAT LABOR WANTED TO TALK ABOUT

The advice the PM has given to young Australians struggling to buy their first home: have rich parents or get them to buy you a property when you turn one?

YOU SAID WHAT

"There has never been an opposition that has surrendered so totally to a budget as this one," Turnbull chides Shorten about Labor's apparent lack of interest.

TWEETED

"Morrison can't give a 10-year costing of his tax plan because he's not allowed to take off his shoes and socks," Labor MP Tim Watts.