Cooks leave their mark on Jones

Hone Harawira (left) and Doug Woolerton highlight Shane Jones' injury

A taxpayer-funded trip to the Cook Islands wasn't all fun in paradise for Labour MP Shane Jones, who arrives home today with stitches in his leg after coming a cropper on a scooter.

Mr Jones was one of four New Zealand MPs who went to advise the Pacific Island nation on financial transparency and scrutiny of public expenditure.

The trip, being made by members of Parliament's finance and expenditure select committee, was not publicly announced.

Mr Jones, the chairman of the committee, crashed his bike on Tuesday while riding around Rarotonga with the other MPs on the trip - the Maori Party's Hone Harawira, National's Murray McCully and New Zealand First's Doug Woolerton.

Mr Jones told the Cook Island News he was looking for the place his ancestors departed by canoe, near the Avana Passage at Ngatangiia, when he crashed.

"I think it might have been a Rarotongan dog walking around like an unguided missile that threw me," he said.

"I wasn't going very fast."

Scooters are a popular mode of transport for tourists in the Cook Islands and accidents on the hazardous roads are so common the locals have coined the name "Raro tattoo" to describe injuries sustained.

Mr Jones' "Raro tattoo" required a trip to the hospital and a number of stitches.

"I felt a little foolish. I showed how I need lots more practice, not on a waka ama but on a scooter," he told the Cook Islands News. "I've been the butt of jokes from some Rarotongan politicians and already some New Zealand politicians."

Mr Jones, Mr Harawira and Mr Woolerton spent yesterday touring the island paradise of Aitutaki during a "hospitality" day.

Mr McCully, who returned to New Zealand yesterday, told the Herald the trip was a "serious undertaking" and the group had advised the Cook Islands' Cabinet, other MPs and heads of ministries on accountability with public money.

The trip included workshops where the New Zealanders provided advice and gave case studies, such as the committee's inquiry into TVNZ.

"They [Cook Islands] have had stuff like some ministries not filing annual reports for a few years," Mr McCully said.