Members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate were sworn in on Tuesday, after the parliament was opened by chief justice Susan Kiefel.
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After an ecumenical church service, MPs gathered for a Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony at Parliament House.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives Milton Dick is set to take charge over parliamentary debate, promising impartiality, an open door and a commitment to ensuring that Parliament House is a safe workplace.
The Labor member for Oxley won the secret ballot on Tuesday against the Coalition's most recent speaker Andrew Wallace 92 to 56.
"It's probably fair to say every speaker has said these words some way or another over the years, but the difference is the people of Australia have sent a very clear message on how they expect politics to be conducted," he told Parliament.
"They want something different and I'm trying to work with every member to see that change. But I need every member to commit to that change to make it work."
Political debate is already underway as Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said Australia's international reputation will take a hit if parliament fails to legislate climate targets.
Mr Bowen confirmed tweaks had been made to his bill to satisfy some demands from Greens and teal independents but will not concede on calls for a "climate trigger" to be inserted into environmental protection laws.
"This is an opportunity for the parliament to send a message to the rest of the world ... that not only do we have a government that gets it, we have a parliament that gets it," Mr Bowen told reporters in Canberra.
Meanwhile in the realm of social policy, government services minister Bill Shorten hopes a Royal Commission into robodebt will win back the public's trust.
In a speech to a government services forum on Tuesday morning, Mr Shorten discussed his hope to see the federal government's MyGov system be expanded to become a "whole-of-life support" shop for Australians over the next decade.
"[Robodebt] is the antithesis of fair, a woefully unlawful experiment on vulnerable people," Mr Shorten said.
"The Royal Commission will help us understand how such a failure of public administration could happen, for the crucial reason of ensuring it will never happen again."
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