The Australian Parliament has descended into raucous scenes reminiscent of a schoolyard brawl, with Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles formally warned and a Liberal MP unceremoniously ejected. The Speaker was forced to lay down the law, declaring that Question Time would not become a "free for all," as tensions over interest rates and hate speech laws boiled over.

The drama unfolded during a heated exchange over the economy. Ted O’Brien, the Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy, launched a blistering attack on Treasurer Jim Chalmers regarding the Reserve Bank's warning that demand is pushing up growth limits. Chalmers fired back, accusing O’Brien of dishonesty, a charge that ignited the Opposition benches and led to a shouting match that drowned out parliamentary protocol.

The Speaker's crackdown

Speaker Milton Dick, visibly frustrated by the deteriorating decorum, took the rare step of halting proceedings to deliver a stern rebuke. "We are not going to have a question time where everybody thinks it’s a free for all," he thundered. His warning came too late for one Liberal MP, who was ordered to leave the chamber for disorderly conduct, a symbolic casualty of the government's increasing fragility under pressure.

Meanwhile, the political temperature is rising outside the chamber. The Queensland government announced a third tranche of controversial "adult crime, adult time" laws, further polarizing the electorate. These laws, which sentence children as young as ten as adults for serious crimes, have become a lightning rod for the youth justice debate.

• Economic Anxiety: The root of the parliamentary aggression is the cost of living. With interest rates refusing to drop, the government is on the defensive, leading to shorter fuses and sharper tongues.
• Internal rifts: Deputy PM Marles is also fighting fires on his own front bench, having been labelled a "factional assassin" by dumped minister Ed Husic, exposing deep divisions within the Labor party.

A Government Under Siege

The spectacle in Canberra is a symptom of a broader malaise. With the Coalition pressing hard on economic mismanagement and Labor fracturing internally over foreign policy and cabinet positions, the orderly conduct of government business has become the first victim. As the Speaker tries to regain control, the Australian public is left watching a parliament that seems more interested in scoring points than solving problems.