John Armstrong: Cullen blows his top as the Tamihere circus rolls on

It may have been the accusation that he had variously tricked, cheated, double-crossed, short-changed and duped Labour's coalition partners that tipped Michael Cullen into tantrum territory.

Or it may have merely been his annoyance at National's Gerry Brownlee getting away with raising a point of order while reclining in his seat.

Whatever, the fury that gripped Dr Cullen left the tiniest suspicion that the Opposition's milking of John Tamihere's confessions about life inside Labour is getting under the Government's skin.

Mr Tamihere's most serious charge is that Dr Cullen regularly hoodwinks minor parties supporting Government legislation. The notion that he has fooled them with surreptitious changes of wording has been vigorously dismissed by those parties - United Future, the Greens and NZ First.

But the denials prompted Act to search for examples.

While its MPs failed to pin anything on Dr Cullen, he took strong exception to Heather Roy saying he had double-crossed United Future. When Speaker Margaret Wilson ruled in his favour, Heather Roy simply changed "double-crossing" to "tricking". Her colleague Stephen Franks later got away with "clever duping".

As the questioning continued, Mr Brownlee interrupted with a point of order, provoking furious gesticulating and yelling from Dr Cullen.

His gripe was that Mr Brownlee had been allowed to raise a point of order without getting to his feet.

But his over-the-top reaction had Act's Rodney Hide complaining that Dr Cullen's barracking was an attempt to intimidate the Speaker and he should be censured.
Margaret Wilson did not agree, but the House became bogged down in argument for well over 20 minutes. Dr Cullen finally apologised - but not before the Speaker ordered National's Judith Collins from the chamber for talking during a point of order when the culprit was her colleague, Sandra Goudie.

The error was swiftly rectified, but it was the third time Mrs Collins had been the subject of mistaken identity.

She had earlier denied authorship of the quip attributed to an anonymous National MP that Mr Brownlee is "as useless as tits on the bull" - a quote Helen Clark keeps parroting to counter the Opposition's exploitation of Mr Tamihere's verbosity.

Mrs Collins was also forced to her feet when the House was later told Mr Tamihere had talked to National's Richard Worth about joining his party.

This was news to Mr Worth. As the chamber wondered who was behind that rumour, Labour's Trevor Mallard exclaimed: "Judith Collins."

She immediately demanded an apology. But a now much-cooled-down Dr Cullen asked why Mr Mallard should apologise for merely uttering the words "Judith Collins".

She responded that no one should be fooled into thinking Mr Mallard spontaneously mouthed "Judith Collins" every time he looked across the chamber, before adding provocatively: "He might say it in his dreams ... "

The thought of one of Labour's leading lefties falling for the charms of National's arch-critic of welfarism met with shocked "oohs". But Mr Mallard was wise to this clever attempt to embarrass him.

"Nightmares, nightmares," he corrected her, once the mirth had subsided.