MPs slip away to lecture on how to be upfront

Shane Jones

Four New Zealand MPs have slipped away unannounced on a taxpayer funded trip to the Cook Islands to advise the Pacific nation on financial transparency.

No public notification was given of the five-day trip being made by members of Parliament's finance and expenditure committee.

Attending are Labour MP and committee chairman Shane Jones, Maori Party MP Hone Harawira, New Zealand First MP Doug Woolerton, National MP Murray McCully and two committee officials.

All are understood to be staying at the Edgewater Resort in Rarotonga, where rooms cost up to $430 a night.

The trip includes a three-day workshop, where the MPs will provide the Cook Islanders advice about how to scrutinise Government expenditure, and a "hospitality" day, the details of which are not known.

The Herald learned of the trip by chance.

Yesterday the finance and expenditure committee office could not provide any details of the trip because the committee clerk was in Rarotonga on the trip.

Mr Jones' office provided the Herald with the trip itinerary.

The Herald tried to contact Mr Jones in Rarotonga last night, but he was not available.

New Zealand is paying for the flights and the delegation's expenses, and the Cook Islands Government is paying the accommodation costs.

Accountability of MPs on overseas trips has been closely scrutinised since then-Speaker Jonathan Hunt led four MPs on a $150,000 three-week trip around South America and the United States in 2001.

The following year National MP Richard Worth came under fire after he chose to go for a camel ride rather than attend a commemoration service for the Maori Battalion in Egypt while he was there on a taxpayer-funded trip.

The Cook Island trip was organised by Clerk of the House of Representatives David McGee after a request from the country's Parliament asking for help with its newly set-up public expenditure special select committee.

The MPs are giving members of the Cook Islands' select committee, other MPs and heads of Government ministries advice about scrutiny of Government spending and of the annual performance of Government departments.

Mr McCully is not a member of the finance committee.

National said he was attending because the party's two senior MPs on the committee, Lockwood Smith and John Key, were not able to go.

The committee's present workload includes the Kiwisaver Bill, the TVNZ inquiry and several financial reviews.