The political temperature is slowly rising.

It may seem counter-intuitive, given the September 14 election date is set, but parliament has had a relatively quiet start to the year.

You couldn't quite call it civil, but the decibel level has been down and there've been occasional flirtations with discussion of policy.

Question time on Tuesday, however, looked and sounded like a return to the bad old days.

The opposition spent most of its time on the mining tax, which is proving such a woeful revenue raiser.

Julia Gillard said Tony Abbott's questions showed he was "months and months and months" behind in the debate and was deeply ignorant on economic matters.

As the opposition pursued her, particularly on whether the government would change the tax, Gillard said, "No amount of yelling at me changes the facts."

That was a fair enough rebuke, except her mob was making about the same amount of meaningless noise.

It reached a climax of sorts when Craig Emerson and Joe Hockey exchanged loud insults across the despatch box, with both sides noisily supporting their champion.

That ended with Speaker Anna Burke, at her most strident this year, kicking two Liberal backbenchers out and curtly rejecting Christopher Pyne's pleading for mercy for them because of the extreme provocation.

Early in the session the government used its questions to emphasise its priorities - jobs and growth. For Wayne Swan, particularly, the two words became a mantra.

Later, the government started talking about actions it's taking over a range of policies, like workplace bullying, support for pensioners and improvements to schools.

And talking about how the dreadful Tony Abbott would, given half a chance, undo all their good work.

Thus Jenny Macklin, after boasting about all the government is doing for pensioners, said Abbott would claw all the money back.

Similarly, Peter Garrett catalogued the coalition's education record during its 11 years in government - no national curriculum, no decent funding model, flagpoles instead of new classrooms.

Garrett also said Pyne, who's the opposition's education spokesman, wants to sack one in seven teachers.

This is an old, old accusation and Pyne, for the umpteenth time, denied the "falsehood".

His proof of innocence, he says, is that he can't because he doesn't employ any.