Labor frontbenchers have attacked Finance Minister Mathias Cormann over his use of the insult "economic girly man" against Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, with one accusing him of "sounding like a dickhead".
Opposition employment spokesman Brendan O'Connor said the joke was on Senator Cormann, who had been left looking like a "bit of a dill" in his attempt to get a headline.
"A Finance Minister of Australia doesn't have to sound like a dickhead if he wants to make a point " Mr O'Connor told Sky News.
A few breaths after swearing on television, the Labor frontbencher then rounded on the Finance Minister for his language.
"It's not the sort of language that a Finance Minister would normally be using. They'd be focusing on the significant decisions that are made in government," he said.
Penny Wong, Labor's leader in the Senate, said that being a girl should never be used as an insult.
"If we use 'girl' as an insult, what are we telling our sons and our daughters about being a girl? You are saying it is somehow less competent, weak, whatever the imputation," she said.
Senator Cormann refused to retreat from his comments for the second day in a row and said he had no regrets.
"I have used a terminology that has been previously used by somebody else, referencing a very well known expression used by somebody else," he said in Melbourne.
"It was a bit of humour to make a very serious point. And the serious point is that Bill Shorten is standing in the way of our government fixing the mess that the government that he was a part of left behind."
Asked about Mr O'Connor's "dickhead" insult, Senator Cormann said: "We live in a free world. He is of course entitled to his opinion."
The Belgian-born senator borrowed the political insult from actor-turned US politician Arnold Schwarzenegger, who used it to describe the opponents of George Bush snr during the 1988 presidential election, and revived the term in 2004, notably attacking Democrat opponents of his budget at the Republican National Convention.
At the weekend, some of the heat came out of Labor's attacks on Senator Cormann's use of the term after it emerged that an ALP senator has used the same term as a put-down.
According to Hansard, in September 2005, during a debate on the privatisation of Telstra, senator Ursula Stephens referred to Liberal MP Alby Schultz as having acted as a "telecommunications girly man".
This is not the first time Senator Cormann has channelled his inner Arnie. Senator Cormann ended his first speech to Parliament with The Terminator's most famous catch-phrase "I'll be back".
The Finance Minister attacked Mr Shorten during a weekend interview for not having delivered a surplus during its recent terms in government.
"The problem that the Labor Party has today is that Bill Shorten is an economic girly man. He doesn't have what it takes to repair the budget mess that they have left behind," Senator Cormann said on Saturday.
With Heath Aston
