Of course, MPs would sometimes hold up the front page of their local newspaper to underscore their finer points, but in 1985 Tasmanian Liberal Bruce Goodluck wore a chicken suit into the House of Representatives for a dare and gave parliamentarians alternative careers as sit-down comedians.

However, the Senate's history of taking itself more seriously than the other place seemed to keep stunts at bay, at least until August 17, 2017.

Senator Pauline Hanson's decision to wear a burqa on Thursday turned the Senate into Stunt Central, taking the game away from the House of Representatives where just hours before Labor MHR Rob Mitchell failed in an attempt to take a foil hat into the lower house for embattled Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.

Malcolm Turnbull's front bench has habitually reached for props: last February, for instance, Treasurer Scott Morrison lumbered into the chamber with a lump of coal; Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce was unable to resist playing catchy with the piece of ore.

Nearly a decade back Liberal MP, Danna Vale, was allowed to display a duckbill speculum while speaking on cervical cancer. Family First's Steve Fielding came as a beer bottle, Labor's Sharryn Jackson sported ugg boots to draw attention to trade issues, while a Labor colleague Ted Grace used a heroin cap to illustrate electorate drug problems.

The Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, bought a Work Choices mousepad to beard the defeated Coalition, and Labor MP Graham Edwards presented deactivated landmines to press the case for Australia to ratify an international treaty.

Then shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, produced a chart so large it had to be held up by several members. (His assistant shadow treasurer, Tony Smith, eventually rescued Mr Hockey by taking a pair of scissors from an adviser and cutting the chart into several smaller pages.) A life-sized cardboard cut-out of Kevin Rudd, carried into the chamber by the Opposition, was ruled out of order.

Parliamentary stunts were so endemic in 2009 that the speaker, Harry Jenkins, initiated an inquiry after a particularly theatrical week in May.

The Standing Committee on Procedure found MPs had toted everything but the kitchen sink into the chamber. Among the chattels: a flag, plants, gold nugget, bionic ear, hemp fibres, petrol cans, a weapon, a toy chicken.

On Thursday, Senate president Stephen Parry allowed Senator Hanson to continue to wear the burqa in the chamber because he knew who she was.

But when it comes to props, parliament security are not so laissez faire: three men who tried to enter Parliament in 2014 wearing a Ku Klux Klan mask, a niqab and a motorcycle helmet were only allowed in after they removed the headwear. They, too, were protesting the burqa.