KEY POINTS:
Maori MP Hone Harawira has to pay $1100 for going walkabout from a publicly funded select committee trip to visit Aboriginal communities in Alice Springs.
Speaker Margaret Wilson yesterday ordered Mr Harawira to pay for half of his $2200 business class airfares to Melbourne after he left two days into a four-day programme of meetings organised for the justice and electoral select committee.
She said it was inappropriate for MPs on publicly funded visits to leave on "private business".
His actions may also have tainted the current trust arrangement that exists when the Clerk of the House agrees to bids for the taxpayer to fund travel for select committees.
In a letter of advice to the Speaker, the Clerk of the House, David McGee, said it was "unacceptable" to accept public funds for a select committee trip but then fail to carry it out.
He suggested a future clampdown might be needed to ensure MPs travelling on publicly funded trips carried out their duties, rather than the "implicit" arrangement that currently applied.
"It may well be that as a result of this case the obligation on members who accept public funds to participate in official travel needs to be more strongly emphasised to them and that they be required to sign an acknowledgment to this effect as a condition of the payment of funds."
Mr Harawira covered his own costs for the trip to Alice Springs and yesterday said he would pay the amount ordered, but remained unrepentant about the trip.
"I already declared I will pay if there are any penalties. The issue isn't about money, it's about the plight of the Aborigines in Australia, particularly in the Northern Territory, and what's happening to them as a result of the John Howard programme, so my paying the fine is not an issue."
Mr Harawira was earlier criticised by Prime Minister Helen Clark who said he had "skived off" and it was not acceptable behaviour for a member of Parliament to leave a select committee trip to pursue their own interests.
Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples defended Mr Harawira in Parliament, asking if similar "due diligence" was demanded from other MPs who had taken a break from official missions to "ride camels or play rugby."
Mr Harawira later said he also felt others had been allowed to get away with it, but did not want to make too much fuss in case it led to MPs being overly restricted in what they were able to do on trips.
"I am concerned that people were petty enough to raise it, because other MPs in the past have gone off and done other things. But we are not going to make a big fuss about that."
In advice to the Speaker, the Clerk of the House said it was not common, but MPs did sometimes leave a delegation early and in such cases the Clerk recovered any overpaid expenses.
NZ First MP Ron Mark - who first raised the issue in Parliament last week - said making Mr Harawira pay for the airfares was justified.
"He could have done that trip any time he liked but he chose to do it that way, clearly to save himself money. Wrong."
He said Mr Harawira had not sought permission to make the trip and had been caught out.
"Even if he'd been upfront there would have clearly been a difference of opinion about a Maori MP who should have been dealing with child abuse over here going over and telling the Aussies how to run their country."
Mr Harawira placed copies of his report on the trip on the desks of each MP before the House sat yesterday.
Within it, he took a swipe at NZ First, noting that the party had not yet paid back the money owed for overspending at the last election.
