In punchy mood, Smith expelled interjectors - mostly opposition MPs - and even clipped several ministerial wings, including high-flyers such as Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

When Morrison fulsomely agreed to limit his remarks to what he'd been asked, saying "I'm happy to do that Mr Speaker", Smith angrily fired back: "I don't care whether you're happy or not, you need to return to the question."

It's not often any PM is slapped down like that.

There were other cases too. Greg Hunt was summarily sat down.

It all came during a spirited question time, notable for what might be called the end of bipartisanship over the Covid crisis.

Indeed, Labor brought a new muscularity to the issue of pandemic (mis)management. And not before time.

Amid a worrying outbreak in Melbourne, Labor probed the government on the desultory state of the vaccine rollout and on its policy of relying primarily on city-based, state government-run hotel quarantining.

A pre-question time tweet from Anthony Albanese foreshadowed the opposition's approach.

Citing US President Joe Biden's remarkable milestone of getting 50 per cent of American adults fully vaccinated, Albanese wrote: "As of today, less than 2% of Australians are fully vaccinated. We are being left behind."

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Labor's health spokesman, Mark Butler, also ridiculed Morrison's previous promise to have Australia at the head of the international queue, declaring we'd fallen so far back we couldn't even see the front of the queue.

Labor, it seems, has finally come to the conclusion that the glacial rollout and the use of improvised containment measures are neither adequate nor permanent answers.

Morrison sought to demonise the opposition in response. Quoting an Albanese line from the Rudd-Gillard wars, he suggested Labor was simply more interested in "fighting Tories" than fighting the virus.

It's a line with party-room resonance at best. At worst, it invites the public question: why is the government not interested in fighting the virus more energetically?

Come to that, why is its entire strategy so stubbornly set, so transparently hostage to mistakes made in the beginning - from the half-hearted acquisition of vaccines, to the undue focus on two types (UQ and AZ) when there were better options available?

With each setback, these questions will only become more piercing in 2021.