The political battlelines are as old as the hills but the insults are laced with fresh venom.
Peter Dutton and his Greens enemies have traded blows over a bruising by-election result and controversial plans to fast-track white South African farmers through Australia's refugee program.
The home affairs minister came out all guns blazing on Thursday after Greens MPs lined up to label him racist for planning to give the farmers special attention.
Mr Dutton said Richard Di Natale was marching the minor party towards political oblivion, citing poor Greens results in the Batman by-election and South Australian and Tasmanian polls.
"Let's hope it continues - the best thing for the Greens would be to keep Richard Di Natale there because he's a dud," he told 2GB radio.
The minister claimed Senator Di Natale fabricated outrage to distract from his own woes.
"He's got a hotbed of crazies running around like Lee Rhiannon under him, he can't control them, and people see through the Greens," Mr Dutton said.
He said the Greens were far more interested in refugees and legalising drugs than they were about the environment.
"They're radicals and they try and pretend that they're interested in the environment, which is why they get young people to vote for them," Mr Dutton said.
"But in the end, you saw it when they were in government with Gillard, they're a complete disaster."
Greens senator Nick McKim returned fire, labelling Mr Dutton a racist and fascist, arguing the minister was taking his cues from neo-Nazi and white supremacist websites.
Senator Di Natale said Mr Dutton was invoking the White Australia policy, questioning the difference between the white South African farmers and the 700,000 Rohingya people forced from their homes.
"The difference is that they are white and that the other communities who are suffering - and we're talking about an ethnic cleansing in Myanmar right now - that they're not white," Senator Di Natale told Sky News.
Mr Dutton also took aim at independent parties after disastrous showings by Nick Xenophon in South Australia and Jacqui Lambie in Tasmania.
He said their model was built on voicing outrage to cause disruption and dysfunction, and it was fading fast.
"I think independents can scream from the sidelines a lot," Mr Dutton said.
"But I think people realise that if you want a government to deliver and to act on the things that are important to you, you can't do it as an independent, you've got to have a government with a majority."
