Maori Party split over koha

Hone Harawira

Maori Party MPs seem to differ on when koha should be accepted and for what purposes.

Te Tai Tokerau MP Hone Harawira appeared to have gone to ground yesterday after a series of conflicting statements at the weekend about his accepting koha as an MP were made.

Party co-leader Tariana Turia said the rules were clear: Koha should always be spent for electorate or party purposes.

But the other co-leader, Pita Sharples, waded into the debate last night, saying he had accepted cash koha, sometimes at his office, but what he did with it was his business.

Mrs Turia said a discussion was inevitable at tomorrow's caucus meeting.

Mr Harawira said on TVNZ's Agenda programme that he was offered cash, in the form of koha from people, and "of course I take it".

If the donor insisted he took it, rather than gave it to the Maori Party, "my wife takes it off me, it goes to the school", he said, referring to a local kura kaupapa.

In another case, his "aunty" pushed money into his hands and he organised for someone else to give it back to her, he said.

Asked if this could involve "a giving of koha for services", he said, "Yeah, sure it happens to me."

Mr Harawira was defending the practice of lafo engaged in by Taito Phillip Field and comparing it to koha.

While both were clear it was not used for personal purposes, he and his wife, Hilda, were then quoted in two Sunday papers yesterday with two quite different explanations of what he had said.

She told the Herald on Sunday her husband had only been given cash once, which had been passed on to the kura to help two needy students.

However he was quoted in the Sunday Star-Times saying: "I get offered money all the time, and mostly by our older people. It's quite embarrassing. You try and give it back and they will slap you around the ears."

He would either return the money or use it to buy cakes at public gatherings, he said.

Mr Harawira did not return Herald calls yesterday, but Mrs Turia said the caucus would discuss the matter tomorrow.

She said all political parties benefited from donations or koha, but Maori Party policy was that it should always be spent for electorate or party purposes.

Although Mr Harawira said on Agenda he got koha in exchange for services, she did not believe this was actually the case.

She personally did not believe koha should be taken for services an MP did for a constituent, which was a job similar to that done by a public servant.

"That's not my understanding of koha. For me koha is usually given for an event, it's usually given to a collective."

Dr Sharples said he also accepted cash koha. Much of it was unrelated to his work as an MP, but on occasion he had received koha in his office.

Koha was usually given on visits to marae or at formal Maori functions. It was also given if you wanted to encourage something someone was doing.

Dr Sharples said he never receipted koha and it was "no one else's business" what he did with it.

Giving a receipt would turn it into a payment, denigrating the koha and insulting the giver.

Labour MP Shane Jones said, "Koha really is a contribution given for hui. On a day-to-day basis that's how people use the term. It would never be appropriate for you to take a koha as a fee for service."

Mr Field is alleged to have taken cash for services to individual constituents and to have personally benefited from cheap labour provided out of a sense of obligation by some people he gave immigration help to. Other largely unspecific claims about Mr Field receiving lafo inappropriately have also been levelled.

Labour Party president Mike Williams said yesterday that money should never be given to MPs for services done for constituents. General donations went to either the local electorate committee or the Labour Party and all had to be receipted.

Associate Pacific Affairs Minister Luamanuvao Winnie Laban said "people are getting mixed up with the term lafo and mea alofa".

Lafo was generally a reciprocal practice restricted to chiefs, who might honour one another by giving money during certain events or ceremonies. Mea alofa was a donation, more akin to koha, although "koha is a Maori term, so I don't speak for Maoris and Maoris don't speak for Samoans" she said in what appeared to be a broadside directed at Mr Harawira.

- Additional reporting NZPA