CANBERRA - Prime Minister John Howard has spoken to Health Minister Tony Abbott and other senior ministers to express his disappointment with their parliamentary behaviour.
Mr Abbott last week called Labor frontbencher Kelvin Thomson a "snivelling grub" and Treasurer Peter Costello described opposition backbencher Duncan Kerr as a "dropkick".
Neither minister was penalised.
But Labor frontbencher Julia Gillard was expelled from parliament for 24 hours this week for throwing the "snivelling grub" term back at Mr Abbott and then refusing to withdraw it unconditionally.
Mr Howard said it had not been a good week for parliament and the antics had overshadowed serious government achievements.
"I thought last week was not a good week for federal parliament," Mr Howard told Southern Cross Broadcasting.
"I expressed that view to a number of my senior colleagues that it was not good and ... no, it's not appropriate.
"I do think that when things like this occur they are naturally given enormous publicity.
"There was a lot of very serious business done this week and a lot of good positive things achieved by the government. But those incidents which are so easy to report overshadowed those things."
Mr Howard said "snivelling grub" was completely unacceptable and "dropkick" was not much better.
"Well, it's (dropkick) not an expression that I think I have used, but it's not quite as childishly offensive as the other one," he said.
"Would I use those expressions? No."
Four Labor MPs, including Ms Gillard, were thrown out of question time yesterday for unruly behaviour.
And Mr Abbott and Mr Costello also accused Labor frontbenchers of deliberately standing up to block camera shots of Mr Howard.
Mr Howard said he was not sure if he was being deliberately obscured, but he had noticed a number of Labor members standing in his line of vision.
"It didn't occur to me at the time but a number of people said afterwards that's what they were doing," he said.
"I can't verify that without looking at the footage, and frankly I've got more things to do with my time.
"It's not something that I'm going to get worked up about. I'm sure if something is being done that's wrong, the Speaker will deal with it."
Speaker David Hawker has promised to review the footage to see if any action needs to be taken.
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