Protesters have superglued their hands to the railings of the House of Representatives public gallery in Parliament House, Canberra, in a chaotic protest which forced the suspension of Question Time.

Wednesday’s sitting was temporarily halted following the co-ordinated demonstration against the government’s offshore detention regime, action the Speaker Tony Smith described as “extraordinary scenes” that “threatened the dignity of the house”.

Mr Smith pledged every aspect of the incident would be investigated.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten sat in the House of Representatives watching the protesters in the gallery above, as they shouted slogans at MPs below.

“This is a state of emergency. This is a humanitarian crisis. You are all complicit,” some of the chants said. “Close the camps.”

here's the start of the refugee protest in #QT – they shouted over Melissa Price, who tried valiantly (in vain) to continue her question pic.twitter.com/DARCMwnLaU

— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) November 30, 2016

Leader of the House Christopher Pyne inflamed tensions moments after Question Time resumed when he labelled the protest “the most serious intrusion into the Parliament since the riots organised by the ACTU in 1996”.

Mr Pyne’s comment attracted loud jeers from Labor across the chamber.

Protesters remained in the chamber 30 minutes after Question Time was called off, with their hands superglued to the railings. Paramedics were called in to free them.

Mr Pyne asked the Speaker Mr Smith to conduct an investigation into how the protesters entered the chamber, which he alleged could have been aided by MPs.

A picture of the protesters, seen standing in the front row. Photo: Twitter

“If people are signed in from the public to the building and, in many cases to the chamber, they are signed in by a member of Parliament in which case there may well be a trial of where the miscreants who disrupted the Parliament came from, and I think it would be important to determine that.”

As Question Time resumed about 45 minutes after the incident, Parliament House staff were seen cleaning the hand rails to which the protesters had been glued.

It is estimated that there were 20 to 25 protesters in all.

They sat in the public gallery behind Mr Shorten, to the left of the Speaker’s chair.

A group called the Whistleblowers, Activists and Citizens Alliance (WACA) took to Twitter to claim responsibility for the protest.

We've shut down Parliament. #closethecamps #bringthemhere pic.twitter.com/o0yDXaE8mg

— WACA (@akaWACA) November 30, 2016

Security guards worked to remove the protesters from Parliament House completely but their demonstrations continued outside of the chamber.

Others who either hadn’t made it into the chamber or never entered it stood arm-in-arm outside.

A protester is pinned to the ground by security outside the chamber. Photo: AAP

They were eventually forcibly removed by security.

Once it became apparent security were not able to remove the protesters from the chamber quickly, MPs departed and Question Time was suspended.

The official video feed provided by Parliament House was cut off at this point and at no point of the protest were cameras trained on the advocates.

In August 2016 protesters from WACA managed to storm a stage in Melbourne where Mr Turnbull was giving an economic address.

At the time questions were asked about how protesters were allowed to get so close to the PM.