Editorial: Race card obscures koha issue

Opinion

It was perhaps only a matter of time before someone played the race card in discussions about Taito Phillip Field, the Labour MP who has been stood down during a police investigation into his conduct. That time came on Saturday morning's Agenda programme on TV One, when Maori Party MP Hone Harawira declared the treatment of Mr Field was "brown bashing" and that there was nothing wrong with accepting donations from constituents in the form of lafo or its Maori equivalent, koha.

Why, he had done it himself, and the money had been passed on to a school through his wife.

The aim of this debating tactic is to cut off the possibility of discussing Mr Field's conduct in terms of whether it was right or wrong. If it's in his culture, the argument implies, who are you to judge?

Not surprisingly, Mr Harawira's comments sparked responses from other Maori MPs, but rather than bringing clarity to what one described as a "clash of cultures" they served only to increase confusion about what Maori themselves understand as acceptable koha. Mr Harawira and his party's co-leader Pita Sharples said koha was hard to refuse. But Shane Jones, a Maori Labour Party list MP, said koha was usually given to help pay for community events and should never be accepted by MPs as tribute for services rendered.

To complicate matters further, Associate Pacific Affairs Minister Luamanuvao Winnie Laban rejected Mr Harawira's equating of koha with the Samoan term lafo. Lafo, she said, was a reciprocal practice restricted to chiefs. Mea alofa was a donation more like koha, although "koha is a Maori term, so I don't speak for Maoris and Maoris don't speak for Samoans".

Whatever might be the right definition and interpretations of these customs - and surely there are many variations - one thing is clear: it is not acceptable for a member of Parliament to receive gifts of cash for services rendered in the course of his or her duties, all the more so when those services are improper.

Interestingly, a former auditor-general said at the weekend that there were few rules for MPs outside the Cabinet on receiving gifts. He suggested a code of conduct was necessary. This is a typically bureaucratic response. No code of conduct is necessary because everyone, no matter what part of the cultural spectrum he or she comes from, knows it is wrong. At best it is unethical, at worst criminal, and for the latter there is another term which is to be found in any dictionary: bribery.

Behind all the variations of the term koha this much, at least, seems to be understood. Those who declared at the weekend that they had received koha hastened to establish their ethical credentials by adding that the money did not go into their own pockets but was returned, spent on a good cause or deposited in party coffers and therefore could not be construed as improper.

In other words there is no cultural clash here, as some would have it. On both sides of the cultural boundary the point is recognised. When the Maori caucus discusses the issue it will surely conclude there is nothing wrong with an individual making a donation to party funds or giving koha at a communal gathering, but there is everything wrong if money changes hands from constituent to MP as payment for service.

This has direct relevance to attempts to characterise the Field investigation as "brown bashing". It is nothing of the kind. Rather, it is a necessary probe into serious allegations and evidence that suggest an MP has crossed a line recognised by all cultures.