The conduct of Taito Phillip Field
Okay it took far too many hours, but I have now extracted from the Ingram Inquiry report, all the sections which show Field as having demonstrated very poor (to put it mildly) behaviour. I defy anyone to state that his behaviour comes anywhere near the level needed to be an MP. Not only did he have numerous immigrants he had helped gained residency working massively under market rates (maybe under legal rates) on his properties, the evidence of Field and his close associates to the Ingram inquiry was on many occasions not credible and not believed by Ingram.
I won’t go as far as Justice Mahon, and call it an orchestrated litany of lies but as you read the report and see how witnesses refuse to testify, do testify and when their evidence is found to be false – clam up, how stories become synchronised – even Mr Ingram notes at one point the testimony was manufactured.
Some of the more damning facts revealed by the investigation:
1. Field denies mentioning the work needed on his house to Siriwan at his initial meeting, yet evidence contradicts this
2. Field claims he was trying to help Siriwan, because he had a NZ born child, but the child was now living overseas with his mother who had been deported and was ineligible to return for at least five years.
3. Siriwan was a thoroughly undeserving case, having claimed to only speak Pali (the equivalent of someone claiming they only speak Latin), and a fake refugee application which was deemed “abusive”. He had overstayed eight years, on his one week visitors permit
4. Damien O’Connor was told by Field that he wanted to reunite Siriwan with his child, and failed to mention the child had been living in Thailand since February 2005.
5. Field managed to get his colleague to grant a visa, despite an immigrant consultant earlier advising that Mr Siriwan’s case was hopeless.
6. The second meeting held to discuss Siriwan working on his Samoan residence was held at Field’s home, not his office (highly unusual)
7. The two air tickets for Samoa were booked by Field’s ministerial office!!!
8. At least one of the air tickets was funded by Field’s Qantas airpoints (which if earned on parliamentary business was a breach of rules). There is a dispute over who paid for Siriwan’s. If the inquiry had been given any powers it would be able to find out from the airline, which could prove or disprove of Field told the truth.
9. Field is criticized by Ingram for not informing O’Connor Siriwan was working on his property
10. Field is also criticized for allowing Siriwan to work on his property, regardless of disputed evidence about whether he arranged it or not.
11. And again Field is criticized for allowing Siriwan to work unpaid on his property
12. Four further Thai immigrants flew to Samoa in May and June 2005. Field denied knowing they were there together, but his wife says he actually met with them while there.
13. A fifth Thai was paid $5,200 by Field. His evidence to the inquiry was deemed not credible (ie he lied)
14. The other four Thais all refused to testify.
15. The inquiry lists numerous reasons why it believes they did work on Field’s house, but says it would be necessary for an authority with appropriate powers of investigation to inquire further.
16. With regard to painting of 51 Church Street, Field resorts to the can not recall defence, to the great frustration of Mr Ingram
17. Field then claimed a Ms Thaivichit had arranged the painting. She helped establish the Thai branch of the Labour Party and was not seen as an independent witness
18. Thaivichit never mentioned the painting in question at her interview, and only after Field said she arranged it, did she mention it. Mr Ingram found her testimony unconvincing.
19. The testimony of the person whom Thaivichit claimed to have painted the house was found to be “rehearsed”
20. Field offered over time four different possibilities of who arranged the painting of the house – evidence called unsatisfactory.
21. Field even claims to be unsure as to whether he may have helped with the painting of 51 Church Street – a confusion Mr Ingram labels difficult to understand
22. A further painting of 51 Church Street was said by Field to be necessary due to damage and so that a bond can be repaid. The Department of Housing has no record of any bond for that property.
23. Despite Field denying he was responsible, the inquiry finds he did arrange for the second painting of Church Street
24. Field paid $1,500 to yet another immigrant he had helped for a job valued at four times that amount
25. Field denied knowing the painter, yet this is contradicted by his advocacy on his behalf to NZIS where he testified as to the genuineness of their marriage,
26. Further painting jobs were done below market rates by an immigrant he had helped.
27. Many of these jobs were paid as cash, arguably illegally
28. Ingram cast doubts of the authenticity of some of the documents “produced” by Field’s friend Thaivichit. Attempts to verify were refused.
29. In relation to a further house painting, Ingram once again finds it “difficult to accept” testimony from Field.
30. Once the allegations went public, Field had a meeting to try and identify the source of the information. Most of the people who attended that damage control meeting have refused to co-operate with the inquiry.
31. Field at first denied the meeting, and then said he can not recall specific discussions at it.
32. Ingram says due to the lies and refusal to co-operate he can’t verify what happened at that meeting, but says some other authority may be able to.
33. Information given to the SFO says that Field named the person he believed leaked the info at that meeting, and that he would have to move out of his house. The person has since moved out of his house.
34. Field purchased a house off constituents who came to him in his capacity as an MP
35. He claimed they asked him to buy it. They deny this.
36. He claimed after he purchased it, they stayed on and did not pay rent. The records show they did pay rent. Ingram says he does not understand Field’s difficulty in recalling this.
37. Field phoned up the father of the family he brought the house off and told him to tell his son to “back off”.
38. Field also said he was sending someone around with a form for the father to sign, saying Field had done nothing wrong. The father is elderly and with Parkinsons.
39. Field did send around 20 letters to local schools asking them to enrol children illegally, as they were not NZ residents.
40. Field’s wife was paid money for working in his office, through another staffer. Such payments broke parliamentary funding rules.
41. Field’s ministerial secretary sent an e-mail asking for Mrs Field to be paid under the table, and on the grounds that the other staffer was not fluent in English.
42. The electorate secretary emailed back saying that Ms Lilo (the worker) was very fluent, and will be the one doing all the work. The reply from Field’s ministerial secretary was “It’s as requested by MP”.
43. The electorate secretary refused to co-operate with the investigation.
44. David Benson-Pope as Whip “tidied” the matter up, and clarified that the Ministerial Secretary made a “mistake” in sending the emails.
Labour should be ashamed that they defend an MP who has acted in such a way. There can also be little doubt that if the inquiry had been given any powers at all, it would have been able to unravel the lies. They are rewarding behaviour that is in the interests of all MPs and NZers to condemn.
Quite frankly the testimony of Field and associates to the inquiry resembles a mafia cover-up – witnesses changing testimony, some witnesses disappearing, others being coached as to their testimony, fake documents produced etc etc. It will be an outrage if Field gets away with claiming he did nothing wrong and the report exonerates him.
July 22nd, 2006 at 10:32 am
Welcome to Helen Clarks new standards of accountability.
July 22nd, 2006 at 10:39 am
DPF wrote;
Labour should be ashamed that they defend an MP who has acted in such a way. There can also be little doubt that if the inquiry had been given any powers at all, it would have been able to unravel the lies. They are rewarding behaviour that is in the interests of all MPs and NZers to condemn.
Yes, and it’s also fair comment to wonder if this is undermining the credibility of the Government when it comes to immigration. After all, O’Connor was talking very tough indeed recently when it came to allegations regarding orchardists and vintners who, shall we say, ‘forget’ to check out the immigration status of their workers, and were not doing much better when it came to pay and conditions. One standard for the powerful and well-connected, quite another for everyone else?
July 22nd, 2006 at 10:52 am
It seems immigration is a minefield of temptation for our elected representatives, no matter which side of the political fence they’re on. Take John Delamere for example.
This ABC PM programme transcript from 1999 is illuminating. What is happening with the SFO case there?
July 22nd, 2006 at 11:06 am
Hard to know why a citizen should act in a responsible manner when their Government behaves in this way.
Will we all really just sit back and take this?
Can the usual suspects find any way whatsoever to defend this?
Stay tuned.
Allah protect us.
July 22nd, 2006 at 11:17 am
Welcome to Helen Clarks new standards of accountability.
July 22nd, 2006 at 11:25 am
More Questions for Oral Answer in the House with predictable responses. Question is, will he be rehabilitated like Benson-Pope?
July 22nd, 2006 at 12:12 pm
If I forget to pay my GST this month and the tax man comes to kick my butt can I say it was just an error of jugdment, do you think he will let me off?.
July 22nd, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Who cares, this is such a minor issue. Think about it, how much more poor people would have been affected if National had allowed tax cuts to ruin the economy? And here the immigrants Field helped gained entry into New Zealand, and didn’t lose out on anything. You’re obviously just trying to make a big deal out of such a small issue because you’ll attack the government at any opportunity.
A proud Labour supporter
July 22nd, 2006 at 1:24 pm
I still find it funny that HC claimed 2 or 3 weeks prior to the report beign released publically that she had not seen it. The information I have received from Dr. Ingram’s wife is that the report WAS received by Helen Clark, as she directly acknowledged this receipt to Dr. Ingram, yet in a press conference just two days later she claimed she had not seen the content of the report.
Perhaps it’s another case of “Let’s see what’s in this before we release it to the public..(with neccessary changes, of course!)”
July 22nd, 2006 at 1:46 pm
Well there you have it a proud labour suporter claiming its all ok because Don Brash is the devil and tax cuts ruin economies.
Those poor bloody Aussies, we’d better send them some aid rather than the most succesful portion of our population.
Labour is utterly without morals, does not answer to the law and you’re proud of it. You’re only answer is to claim socialist ideology is naturally superior.
Nice one comrade. What are you 12?
July 22nd, 2006 at 2:05 pm
A disgrace. Of course nothing further will be done…….
July 22nd, 2006 at 2:14 pm
Here we see the morals of the proud labour supporter. Corruption is okay, so long as it is done by the party whose policies I prefer.
No doubt he or she would also condone vote rigging as long as it is in a good cause.
July 22nd, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Thanks for outlining this DPF, unfortunately the intelligence of Kiwis has now slipped to a level where a bucket of shit can be passed off as strawberries and ice cream, and be consumed without hesitation.
The mere fact this group of crims got re elected is testament to this.
The comments by Anti Brash also go to show that when siblings produce offspring, the resulting creation has the same voting rights as the rest of the country, “bloody scary”.
Field pay his own legal bills or is he entitled to legal aid? When this is finally sorted out he will only probably get home detention anyway.
July 22nd, 2006 at 4:07 pm
So leaving people their own money to spend will ruin the economy…..right! Nice one Lefty….got any other pearls of wisdom?
July 23rd, 2006 at 7:57 am
The next test is whether field abused his position as an MP hence breached privilege. Watch Margaret Wilson find a tortuous argument that errors of judgment are not a breach of privilege. I think the National Party should move a vote of no confidence in Wilson if she makes a ruling like that. And I assume the National PArty has worked out how Wilson will so rule and have the no confidence motion already typed up and the procedural steps worked out on how to move it. I am NOT confident the National Party does this sort of homework.
July 23rd, 2006 at 8:13 am
Further to the above the tactic appears to be to stretch this problem out for as long and longer than reasonable possible. If Wison finds that she cannot preventit going to the privileges committee she will take months and months and months to make the decision. Say until Xmas. And then the Labour Party will use all its skill to prevent that committee from dealing with the case quickly. Meanwhile Field will just have to sit there and wait until this tortuous process plays its way out hopefully they can keep this game up until 2008. The wild card is whether all this is causing collateral damage to the Labour Party with the public and, whether its coalition partners are getting jumpy.
July 23rd, 2006 at 8:35 am
Now it’s not something I had considered previously, but one of Helen Clark’s responses got me thinking.
HC often talks of only being responsible for the conduct of ministers, or not being responsible for the conduct of MPs, and this had always seemed a clumsy method of passing the buck/avoiding tough questions, but a few days ago she said it in a way that made me understand what such a distinction is all about. Something along the lines of “I don’t have the power to order investigations into MPs” – it strikes me that this is incredibly sensible (and that, for people like me at least, this is how HC should explain it).
I don’t want a PM having such power, which has so awesome a potential.
July 23rd, 2006 at 2:09 pm
Graeme – She does have the power, and public opinion is a handbrake against mis-use of that power.
Also if Labour had any interest in the truth coming out, they would have voted for the report to go to the Privileges Cmte.
July 23rd, 2006 at 2:13 pm
What is really shameful, as noted , is now the cover up on top of the original allegations.
All agents of the state now acting as helen’s little helpers, not just the police.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10392491
And then we hear that Field is to have ethical ‘counselling” from the Liabour Party of all organisations.
The Herald did well yesterday, with further pieces from Fran O’Sullianan and John Armstrong.
I was waiting for fresh developments to be reported by TV1 but obviously for the state-owned channel the field fiasco never happened.
Of course, they were quite keen on seeking out any disquiet over Don Brash.
Their reporter Fran Mold made a very telling confession.
That if National does not produce strong policies and there was a void of news to fill, the media would do so by producing speculation on the leadership.
Did anyone else see this bit?
And is this how trhe media should behave?
Look for poerceived falunts in the opposition while ignoring rampant government corruption?
July 23rd, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Am I the only one left in NZ to have a functioning “embarrassment” gene regarding this Labour Govt.and its largely feeble constituients? News abounds of their dishonesty,megalomania,,venality,breaches of promise,idiocy and general “heads I win,tails you lose” attitude.I cringe constantly which is probably not good for a woman my age.OTOH,maybe we got what we deserved.Any way I look at them,it sucks.
July 24th, 2006 at 4:04 am
Mara
I’m one with an acute embarrassment gene as well. Labour’s multiple corrupt abuses of power, its PC obsessions, its fostering of welfarism and its complete lack of understanding of the role of small business in generating wealth are some of the reasons why I am now living in the US.
July 24th, 2006 at 9:02 am
When I first came back from the Middle East I used to think people were over the top when they talked about New Zealand being a third world country.
But a very third world practice in Arab countries is using the same word (baksheesh) for both legitimate payment and a bribe. Alas.. it looks like New Zealand is rapidly descending into this pit.
The other major sign of third world status was adoration of a certain leader no matter how devious, dishonest and Machiavellian their leadership was… bloody hell… this looks scary stuff.. all heil Helen of Teflon.
July 24th, 2006 at 5:16 pm
When I first came back from the Middle East I used to think people were over the top when they talked about New Zealand being a third world country…The other major sign of third world status was adoration of a certain leader no matter how devious…
God this ‘third world’ talk is getting boring.
If high-level corruption is a sign of third-world status, then the USA and UK have had that status bestowed upon themselves years ago. At least our corruption is at the laughable level of some dodgy immigration scam, as opposed to something like payments-for-peerages or multi-million dollar lobbyist back-handers.
And what is Helen’s popularity rating – 39%? – hardly ‘adoration’.
Non minion, when your indoor plumbing stops working and there’s no-one to fix it, your rubbish stops being collected, the electricity goes out (permanently), and the illiteracy rate rises to 50% or greater, then we can start talking about NZ being a third world nation.
July 25th, 2006 at 10:21 pm
So winger,remind me what we are comparing ourselves with.