“Field was unethical”

Good God it has taken twelve months of denial for Helen Clark to now state the obvious – that Taito Phillip Field’s behaviour was at least unethical and possibly illegal also.

At first she defended him of being guilty of nothing more than wanting to help constituents. Then it was he has been cleared. Then it was he may have made errors of judgement.

It has been documented for some months that Field gave false evidence to the Ingram Inquiry. That by itself should have been enough to lead to disciplinary action, regardless of the police inquiry.

ACT showed how this can be done with Awatere-Huata. They booted her from Caucus within a few months. And not on the basis of the criminal charges she was facing, but on the basis that regardless of those her behaviour had been unethical, that she had lied to her colleagues and they could not trust here anymore.

With Field there are strong grounds for suspension from Caucus. He was heavily criticised by the Ingram Inquiry, and since then it has been clear his evidence was false (Ingram himself casts great doubt on it also).

It is quite unacceptable for Field to be drawing a MPs salary for doing nothing for month after month. Labour need to at a minimum get him out of their Caucus or they will continue to be seen as unconcerned over his activities.

There are also some huge questions still unresolved over the role of Field’s ministerial colleagues who gave so many Ministerial decisions in his favour. The evidence that the Associate Minister had been warned of Field’s activities yet took no action is extremely strong.