Prime Minister Tony Abbott says Bronwyn Bishop must make no more errors with expenses and entitlements, effectively putting the under-pressure Speaker on notice.
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But Mr Abbott said neither he nor his office has discussed with Mrs Bishop the prospect of her resigning following revelations she took a $5227 helicopter charter flight to a Liberal Party fundraiser, and an $88,000 two-week trip to Europe.
The Department of Finance is investigating the helicopter flight and two other flights to the NSW towns of Nowra and Young.
On Monday, Mr Abbott said Mrs Bishop was "on probation" — prompting Labor finance spokesman Tony Burke to write to the Prime Minister and ask what that meant in practice — and on Tuesday, Mr Abbott's warning was blunt.
"It is a serious error of judgment and understandably, the Australian people are unhappy that a senior representative in the Parliament should think that it was all right to use a helicopter to get around, when a Comm[onwealth] car would have been available at a fraction of the price," he said.
"I said yesterday that she was on probation, and what I expect of Bronwyn, indeed what I expect of all of my people, is that they will act in accordance with the rules.
"I think the message to Bronwyn, the message to all of us is please no errors in the future like the sorts of errors that we have seen in the not too distant past."
Mr Abbott said the Speaker still had his confidence.
In a subsequent press conference, Mr Burke again asked the Prime Minister to explain what, in practice, it meant for Mrs Bishop to be placed on probation.
"Years ago, a Speaker would walk in with a wig and gown and now Tony Abbott gives Bronwyn Bishop one of these," Mr Burke said, referring to a P-plate prop with Mrs Bishop's name on it.
"Bronwyn Bishop now is told by the Prime Minister 'you are on probation'. Instead of walking in with a wig and gown, which was always ridiculous, Bronwyn Bishop now gets to walk into the Parliament with a P-plate. That is the chaos and the joke that the Parliament has become under the most biased Speaker in living memory.
"Today he's even made clear that it [probation] is because Bronwyn Bishop has broken the rules. He specifically referred in his media conference today to the breaking of rules, something that up until now Bronwyn Bishop had denied. But whatever the reason, we need to know what on earth this means."
Mrs Bishop is facing further difficulty when Parliament resumes on August 10, with Labor strategists planning an immediate no-confidence motion in a move designed to blast the Speaker out of the chair.
