Former Labor Speaker Anna Burke has taken aim at her successor for bringing down all MPs.
Bronwyn Bishop is under pressure to resign amid a growing controversy over her use of taxpayer-funded expenses to travel to Liberal Party fundraisers and weddings of colleagues.
Ms Burke says the Speaker should be ashamed of her misuse of entitlements.
The public already distrusted parliament and politicians.
"The person who holds the highest office in that parliamentary system has brought us all into disrepute," she told reporters in Melbourne on Friday.
"How does she now sit in that chair and dictate to the parliament how we all behave when her behaviour has been called into such question?"
Ms Burke thought it problematic that Mrs Bishop continued to insist she hadn't actually done anything wrong and didn't appear to understand why the public was so upset over the affair.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten described Ms Burke as a distinguished former Speaker.
"Her record as Speaker is only shining more brightly by comparison with the current beleaguered occupant of that task," he said at their joint press conference.
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