KEY POINTS:
MPs can still call Winston Peters an old man, and Mr Peters can call them "mendacious sybarites" - but implying Judith Tizard is a witch was one step too far, according to 2007 Speakers' rulings on what MPs can say in Parliament.
The new addition of saying someone
"should get on her broom" to the lexicon of unparliamentary language came courtesy of National MP Nick Smith and was directed at Labour's Judith Tizard.
Mr Smith's suggestion "Ms Tizard should get on her broom" set Ms Tizard's blood boiling and bubbling.
The word "witch" had long been used as a term of insult to women, she said, and was "an insult to every woman in this Parliament and every woman in New Zealand".
"Women were burnt because they spoke out," she said.
She eventually got her way. The Speaker deemed it an offensive remark and made Mr Smith withdraw it and apologise.
However, Ms Tizard was not the only one targeted by insults that risked breaking the rule against offensive or disorderly words.
Mr Peters fought his own battle when Mr Smith told him he was "living in the past, old man". He retorted by suggesting Mr Smith "looked geriatric when he arrived, and slightly zany and slightly nutty".
Bill English objected to Annette King's suggestion he had "sunk so low even his wife must be ashamed of him", and Mrs King turned it back on him, reflecting he had dragged her husband into the debate the week before - breaking the rule that personal matters and family members of MPs be kept out of the debate.
Standard jibes were leapt upon by the Speaker in accordance with another long-standing rule that MPs must not question the honesty or bravery of others.
Calling someone a liar is still forbidden. However, calling them "mendacious sybarites" seems perfectly all right.
Mr Peters got around the rule against suggesting someone had fibbed, by triumphantly declaring the National Party to be "mendacious sybarites".
"All these bright people in the National Party do not know what a mendacious sybarite is," he gloated.
"That is why I can say it with no chance of anyone getting up and making a complaint."
However, ill-disciplined MPs were rebuked left, right and centre in debate on the anti-smacking bill.
Labour's Steve Chadwick was rebuked for accusing others of "hypocritical attitudes".
Mr English got one for saying the Prime Minister should "stop telling the public lies", and NZ First's Doug Woolerton for saying opponents of the bill "do not have the guts" to vote for it.
Other MPs fell foul of the rules with comments including "making a half-arsed attempt", for asking "did she get a cut?" for accusing others of having "aided and abetted this criminal activity", "rorting the figures" and for calling others "absolutely gutless" and "absolutely spineless".
There were those who had lucky escapes. Steve Maharey went unheard by the Speaker when he said "f*@ you" to National's Jonathan Coleman.
