Dumped MP tells Prebble to 'get a life'

11.45am

Dumped Act Party MP Donna Awatere Huata today laughed off Act MPs pursuing a breach of privilege charge against her.

Act leader Richard Prebble yesterday said his suspended MP is facing the most serious allegations against an MP heard in 100 years and still faced expulsion from ACT and potentially Parliament.

Mrs Awatere Huata said that Mr Prebble was "putting the boot in".

"They know they overreacted and should have waited until the investigations were completed. There is nothing new or that would not be covered by the investigations under way in the complaint."

She said Mr Prebble's description of the allegations as the most serious in 100 years was over the top.

"It really is just too much, Richard should get a life."

ACT MPs yesterday suspended Mrs Awatere Huata after she had defied Mr Prebble and refused to resign from Parliament.

Mrs Awatere Huata said she wanted to hold on to her job and clear her name.

Political opponents as diverse as Prime Minister Helen Clark and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters agreed and said ACT should have held fire until inquiries were completed.

Police and the auditor-general are investigating allegations that Mrs Awatere Huata misused public funds earmarked for children's reading programmes run by the Pipi Foundation.

Mr Prebble said his MPs said Mrs Awatere Huata had gone too far and shocked them with more details of her involvement with the trust. The party had been misled when she claimed an arms length relationship with the Pipi Foundation.

The allegations resulted in a breach of privilege complaint being lodged with Parliament's Speaker Jonathan Hunt.

"Yes it is damaging to Act. But it's actually damaging to Parliament and New Zealand," Mr Prebble said.

"There hasn't been a situation of this sort in the New Zealand Parliament for 100 years... If you go back 100 years there have been allegations of this sort. But it almost unheard of in New Zealand. This is the sort of thing we expect to hear about in Queensland or the southern states of America, but not in New Zealand."

The select committee and Parliament have wide powers to punish breaches of parliamentary privilege, Mr Prebble said. Parliament could even potentially expel his MP, he said, although he stopped short of calling for that course of action.

The New Zealand Parliament has only ever suspended MPs. No MP has ever been expelled, but it has happened in Australia and Britain.

In the past MPs here have been fined by Parliament for misconduct, such as receiving money for inserting clauses in a bill at the request of a local body.

On two occasions Parliament considered declaring the seat of an MP to be vacant -- George Grey for absence and Joseph Ward for bankruptcy -- but both bids failed.

Mr Prebble said he would not discuss details of the complaint or the allegations against Mrs Awatere Huata. The suspended MP had made "partial revelations" to the caucus meeting last week. After that her colleagues had given the MP the chance to resign with dignity.

"She refused to answer a number of matters. But she told us some things and they shocked the caucus... They clearly mean she misled us as to the nature of her financial interests for the last four years and we think they raise very, very serious issues regarding her performance as a member of Parliament."

No matter what the outcome of the privilege complaint, Mrs Awatere Huata's position with the party would be reviewed before her suspension lapsed on June 30. Expulsion would be on the agenda when the review took place.

If Mrs Awatere Huata started voting against ACT policy she would face expulsion from Parliament under party hopping laws.

"Mrs Huata would do nothing to endanger her $90,000 a year income," Mr Prebble said.

While Mrs Awatere Huata remains an Act party list member, her party entitlements will be withheld.

She will be excluded from caucus meetings, and lose Act party support such as researchers and media advisers.

Act would lose $34,200 in members' support funding entitlements, which Mrs Awatere Huata would take with her and use to set up an electoral office.

She has been moved to an office on the 10th floor of Bowen House.

Mr Hunt ruled that today's events were an internal party matter and not for his attention. Therefore there would be no change to the seating arrangements in Parliament. In effect she will still be treated as an Act MP for the purposes of Parliament.

Act MPs expected him to take a week to think over their breach of privilege charge.

Meanwhile, The Dominion Post reported today that it had documents that contradicted assurances given by Mrs Awatere Huata over some aspects of spending by the Pipi Foundation.

Earlier this week Mrs Awatere Huata told TVNZ's Holmes programme that the foundation had not paid a phone bill for a mobile telephone used by her husband on a trip to China.

The paper said documents showed that a mobile telephone account for $1071 was paid by the foundation in November 2001.

It alleged that Wi Huata took the phone on a business trip to China in September 2001. The foundation ran reading programmes that did not operate in China.

The documents showed that the majority of 56 calls made during a 10-day period in September were from China. More than 30 per cent of the calls, made from China and Hong Kong, were to the Huata's home or family members. The newspaper said Mrs Huata had last night declined to be interviewed about the mobile phone issue or other allegations published earlier.

Mrs Huata refuses to discuss specific allegations that are under investigation by authorities.

Mrs Awatere Huata told NZPA the Dominion Post had raised the issue of the phonecalls from China before.

She had never commented on specific allegations, and would continue not to do so.

"It's the third time they've run that story," she said.

"I suppose if they keep running it long enough, someone else will pick it up."

Under rapid fire questioning on the Holmes current affairs television programme on Monday night, Mrs Awatere Huata denied her husband paid for phone calls from China with public money.

Today she told NZPA she had made no such denial.

"I said I would not comment on that. I would not go into specific allegations."

When Parliament began yesterday, Mrs Awatere Huata was hugged by Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia before she took her new seat.

Mrs Awatere Huata has been demoted to the back of the Act ranks, but seemed unconcerned by the move, saying she had felt warmly received.

But she told NZPA she was not happy with her new office as the sole MP on the 10th floor of Bowen House.

She was shifted from alongside her Act colleagues on the eighth floor.

An office Mr Prebble described as "generous", Mrs Awatere Huata thought too generous by half.

"It's just I'm drowning in it. I've asked for a smaller office ... but it's okay. I rather be back in my old office, actually."

- NZPA