For beleaguered opposition leader Bill Shorten, who has gone 12 bruising rounds with a royal commission set up by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Madam Speaker’s chopper ride from Melbourne to Geelong is the gift that keeps on giving.

And the same goes for the opposition MPs who have been evicted a total of 400 times to the government’s handful by Madam Speaker.

For them it’s time to extract revenge for an appallingly biased penalty count on the part of the person who should be the parliament’s impartial referee.

The Prime Minister’s response after Ms Bishop grudgingly admitted her chopper error and repaid taxpayers for the $5000 flight plus a penalty was to put her on probation.

Ouch! That must have hurt a politician who is paid $341,000 a year and seems utterly oblivious not only to the expenses guidelines for politicians but more importantly to the responsibility that comes with the high office she holds.

What will Mr Abbott do if desperate inquiries fail to turn up any official engagements to justify taxpayers funding Madam Speaker’s sojourn to Wangaratta?

Mr Abbott won’t want to accept the humiliation of sacking her but as Liberals of the standing of former leader Dr John Hewson said even before this second claim arose, Ms Bishop’s position is indefensible and to keep her as speaker would only prolong the damage to the government.

While all this is fuelling hilarious gags at Madam Speaker’s expense there is less focus on Labor’s national conference and Mr Shorten’s high stakes gamble to get his party to adopt a turn back the boats policy.

Can you imagine the comments when parliament returns if Ms Bishop still occupies the speaker’s chair and she tries to rule opposition MPs out of order for anything when the contest continues?