Disgraced former MP Taito Phillip Field and his wife will be stripped of the generous international travel perks he qualified for while in Parliament.
Speaker Lockwood Smith yesterday issued a directive that will mean Field loses his rights to a taxpayer-funded 90 per cent off any international trip up to about $10,000 a year, as well as 12 domestic return flights. Field's wife Maxine will lose her right to the same perk.
If it hadn't been stripped, they would have been able to claim 18 flights a year to Samoa at $60 each on the basis of a $600 regular price airfare.
Dr Smith's directive said conviction of a serious offence committed while a member of Parliament disqualified them from the travel discount. The privileges available to their spouse or partner also ceased.
It is targeted directly at Field, who was last month convicted on bribery and corruption charges committed while he was in the job.
The perk is only available to members who entered Parliament before 1999.
Dr Smith said the criteria for a serious offence were the same as set down in the Electoral Act that forces a sitting MP to leave Parliament if convicted.
"I felt it was appropriate that the travel privileges of former members be stopped where someone was convicted of an offence that would require them to vacate their seat in Parliament," he said.
Dr Smith said without the directive, Field would have been able to go on claiming it.
He expected it to take force by the end of October.
Field is due to be sentenced on October 6.
Travel perks stripped from Field
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