John Armstrong: Cullen's surprising entry to Labour's Hall of Shame

It is a measure of how far Labour's stocks have dropped that Don Brash could get away with asking the Prime Minister if she had confidence in her Minister of Finance without being laughed out of Parliament yesterday.

The "Do you have confidence in so-and-so" question has been fired frequently by the Opposition at Helen Clark in recent months to force her to defend the likes of George Hawkins and other ministers struggling to get on top of their portfolios.

To have included Michael Cullen in this Hall of Shame would have been unthinkable three weeks ago. Then came his Budget and its 67c tax "adjustment".

Having revelled in Cullen's public relations disaster last week during the Prime Minister's absence overseas, National MPs yesterday greeted her return with the added psychological advantage of last Friday's shock poll showing their party narrowly leading Labour.

The pedestrian Dr Brash may never get a better opportunity to walk all over Helen Clark.

Knowing what was at stake morale-wise, she was not going to let him.

When he asked if she had confidence in her Finance Minister, she dispensed with her stock response that "so-and-so is a hard-working and conscientious minister".

She instead cut to the chase of the argument about tax cuts by saying she had confidence in Dr Cullen because he would always put health, education, families and superannuation first - adding with a growl - "unlike the Leader of the Opposition".

Dr Brash then reminded her that 20 per cent of full-time employees are now paying the top 39c tax rate when Labour had pledged only 5 per cent of taxpayers would be so hit - a charge she could only parry.

However, National's leader is not good at sustaining an attack - he tends to stick inflexibly to his prepared, typewritten questions. And he was further handicapped yesterday by Winston Peters going off at tangents.

The NZ First leader was far more interested in getting to the bottom of Transpower's complex tax arrangements - something Helen Clark claimed Mr Peters had failed to sort out when he was Treasurer in the 1990s.

With the next question going to Labour, Dr Cullen, who had conceded earlier in the day that he should have hosed down expectations that the Budget would contain significant tax cuts, was asked whether he had seen any reports on mortgage rates.

However, just as the Finance Minister was about to rehash Dr Brash's record as Governor of the Reserve Bank, National's Nick Smith interrupted.

"Seven times up," he interjected, apparently referring to the current governor's hiking of rates during Labour's current tenure.

Dr Cullen could not help himself. "More times than the member's managed," he joked.

Having slighted Dr Smith's virility, Dr Cullen then reminded the House that mortgage rates had been over 10 per cent for nearly half the time National had been in power in the 1990s.

For once, Dr Brash hit back. He asked whether Dr Cullen could confirm that when the previous governor - himself - had been appointed in 1988, floating mortgage rates were running at 15.5 per cent. When he had quit in 2002, they were just 7.5 per cent.

Dr Cullen had to agree, before pointing out that Dr Brash's overall record had made him "the most hawkish Reserve Bank governor in the entire developed world".

This provoked another interjection from the National benches. "So why did you reappoint him?"

That awkward question went unanswered.