You're no hero, Turnbull tells Shorten

As far as photoshopping goes, Bill Shorten as the gun-toting, flag-waving French revolutionist atop a hill of bodies may be a stretch.

But that's the image the prime minister wanted to paint in the public's mind of his political opponent - not for any hero-worshipping reasons of course.

Malcolm Turnbull was trying to rubbish the Labor's leader call for a banking royal commission by ridiculing him for apparently presenting himself as the people's saviour.

"He's getting so carried away with himself he sees himself rather like the person, the image of liberty in that great Delacroix painting," he told parliament on Thursday.

"There he is, trampling over the barricades, freeing the people, freeing the people from their wrongs, taking on the banks!"

But no, Mr Turnbull added. The Labor leader was simply running a "hopeless" and "hopelessly populist" political campaign which was exploiting people's suffering.

"The reality is populism will not help. Action will," he said.

It was a takedown in the typical Turnbull style.