John Armstrong: Cunliffe and Key's first fight a little lightweight

The bout everyone had been waiting for began just before 2pm with a lengthy handshake, the Prime Minister making a rare crossing of Parliament's chamber to the Opposition benches to congratulate David Cunliffe on his new job before returning to the Government trenches with every intention of demolishing yet another Labour leader.

It ended at 2.16pm with the new Leader of the Opposition resuming his seat, perhaps a little bruised, but otherwise intact, having failed to do likewise to Key.

Shane Jones might have termed this heavyweight stoush as "David versus the Gorilla", although it is hard to picture Key as some knuckle-dragging primate.

The battle between Auckland's Westie MPs who do not actually live in the West was no Thriller in Manila.

As a former Communications minister, Cunliffe well understands the issues. He certainly floated like a butterfly, at times diverging from his set list of questions if warranted.

But the fuss over the Government's stance on a Commerce Commission ruling is complicated. Cunliffe's eight questions to Key failed to build a convincing case of "crony capitalism" on the part of National and Chorus.

Key had come well-briefed, the mass of blue stickies splicing his papers being the clue. Cunliffe thus stung like a butterfly.

The only harm was self-inflicted. At one point, Cunliffe referred to the chairman of Chorus as the "chairman of caucus". When the laughter died down, he inexplicably did exactly the same thing again. When he finally got it right a third time, National MPs burst into ironic cheers and applause.

Cunliffe's verbal slips could be excused. When only 11 of the parliamentary party's 34 MPs supported your candidacy, the word "caucus" tends to be on your mind.

Cunliffe will suffer brief embarrassment. But it won't be lasting damage.

After two days of utter euphoria at winning the leadership contest, however, he has been brought back to earth with what amounted to a reality check over the sheer scale of the task ahead of him.