Fran O'Sullivan: Outrage obscures the whiff of hypocrisy

Taito Phillip Field (left) is being used as a convenient diversion by MPs running for cover over their generous perks. Photo / Richard Robinson

New Zealand politicians from the Prime Minister down are ganging up to put the boot into disgraced former Labour Cabinet minister Taito Phillip Field by threatening to take his taxpayer-funded travel perks off him.

How convenient.

In a week when the public eye has been deservedly focused on the breathtaking manner in which some New Zealand Cabinet ministers - past and present - have exercised a keen sense of entitlement when it comes to leveraging parliamentary perks to their personal benefit, it seems to have escaped all concerned that there is more than a whiff of hypocrisy surrounding their gang-bash on Field.

The Taito Phillip Field affair was always about corruption, despite belated claims by some elements of the Samoan community that the Helen Clark Government sicked the police on Field as punishment for breaking Labour's politically correct line on social policies.

All Clark asked Queen's Counsel Noel Ingram to do was investigate and determine the nature of Field's relationship with the overstayer Sunan Siriwan and his wife, and the extent of any involvement he may have had in application for their work permits, as well as identify any conflicts of interest with his ministerial role.

It took a concerted campaign by courageous news journalists and the current Speaker of Parliament Lockwood Smith to get more disclosures into the public domain before the police deigned to get off their own backsides and investigate the obvious evidence trail.

It was hardly surprising that a High Court jury subsequently found Field guilty of 11 charges of bribery and corruption as a member of Parliament and 15 charges of wilfully trying to obstruct or pervert the course of justice.

The fact that Field is obviously going down should surely be punishment enough.

But what's got up the parliamentarians' collective noses is the fact that the convicted former MP is perfectly entitled to use his free travel perks, which - according to the logic employed by Act's Sir Roger Douglas this week - is simply part and parcel of a previous employment package where MPs agreed to take a lower base salary in return for additional benefits.

Labour's chief whip Darren Hughes is prosecuting the issue on his party's behalf without any sense of shame that the previous leadership of his party protected Field up to the point where questions were being asked about Clark's own motivations.

There is a public interest in inquiring further into whether the English family trust (despite Bill English's denials) did rearrange the ownership of assets so that the Finance Minister could make the maximum claim on the public purse for his and his family's Wellington accommodation.

So far, Key is not buying into Labour's push for more transparency in this area. But this stance - like with the previous fiasco surrounding allegations that former National Cabinet minister Richard Worth was prepared to trade positions for favours - is starting to wear thin.

The Cabinet has not shied away from depriving beneficiaries of their "entitlements" to taxpayer help towards tertiary education.

Unfortunately, Key, English - and Labour's own hierarchy - appear oblivious to the rank stench of hypocrisy.