Labor is calling for an immediate federal election, saying the Turnbull government is "eating itself alive".
Just two hours after the House of Representatives resumed on Friday the government moved to adjourn the lower house, with a leadership storm brewing outside the chamber.
Labor leader Bill Shorten said walking away from governing was the "ultimate admission of surrender".
By midday the house had adjourned, with 13 ministers resigning from Turnbull's cabinet to pledge their allegiance to Liberal leadership hopeful Peter Dutton.
"I said on Tuesday that this is a government which had lost the will to live," Mr Shorten said.
"But I don't even think on Tuesday we could have seen the cannibalistic behaviour of a government who is eating itself alive."
Manager of opposition business Tony Burke said the government were prioritising their positions and entitlements over the concerns of voters.
"There will be no question time today because they don't know who their ministers are ... they don't know who their prime minister is," he thundered across the chamber.
"If there was ever a government that had questions to answer, it's this mob."
Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek pondered what former Liberal prime minister Robert Menzies would think of the current party.
"They're not conservatives, they are vandals," she said.
"Today is the funeral of the modern Liberal party."
With the upper house still in action, Labor's Penny Wong failed to get support for a no-confidence motion in the government which urged the prime minister to call an immediate election.
Retiring Labor MP Jenny Macklin says voters should decide the direction of the country.
"The Liberal party is completely broken," she said.
The prime minister is waiting for a petition signed by 43 of his Liberal colleagues, and for confirmation on Peter Dutton's eligibility to sit in parliament, before holding a partyroom meeting to decide the fate of the leadership.
