Kerre Woodham: Hone-stly, you're nothing but a bully

Two miscreant MPs and two very different apologies this week. Rodney Hide's mea culpa for gross hypocrisy was sincere and abject and unique in that, unlike most of his kind, he didn't try to pass the buck.

Hone Harawira's was swaggering, arrogant and misjudged. He has brassed off his own party's leaders to the extent that he has been told by the party president to stand in the corner for two weeks and reflect on his behaviour.

In the meantime, the party wallahs will decide over that fortnight whether Harawira is worth the trouble and strife he has, does and will inevitably, cause them.

I think party president Whatarangi Winiata is right. Harawira is the perfect independent candidate. He learned non-conformity and activism at his mother's breast and he's the classic square peg in the round hole.

Of course as an independent he'll be effectively neutered. He'll be isolated and outcast within Parliament but that's the price bullies pay when they can't play nicely with the other children.