Bribery and Corruption is doing pretty well in New Zealand actually.
When we first moved here, I was pretty shocked when quite a few Kiwis we spoke to thought the New Zealand Government was corrupt. Having come from the UK and despising everything our own present government had stood for and allowed to happen – I was just gobsmacked.
Then – the Phillip Field story broke. Basically he was a labour MP who was accused of accepting bribes (in the form of free work form illegal Thai overstayers on his investment properties), in return for help with their Visas.
The case has just been through the courts, and Mr Field was found guilty on 11 counts of bribery, and 15 counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
It’s a pretty sordid tale. And I felt the whole thing showed Mr Field as being a person who was willing to exploit foreign immigrants who may not have realised that they were being used and abused. A lot of stuff about “culture” was involved, both Thai culture and Samoan Culture (Mr Field is originally from Samoa) – where these things are apparently accepted practice. I have no idea of the truth of that – but what I do know, and Mr Field knew full well as a member of the NZ parliament – is that you do not accept any form of bribe for parliamentary favours in THIS culture – the one he was elected to work in. I also know that in THIS culture – forcing people to work you for you nothing is one step up from slavery – and there is no getting away from that in my opinion.
The labour party are getting a bit of a kicking over this it seems – but from my point of view I actually thought that Helen Clark dealt with the situation very well, and very professionally. She ordered an enquiry and Field was forced to leave the Labour party, and lose his ministerial position. I would rather he had been sacked immediately – but hey – the outcome was the same. He tried to fight the next election as an independent but lost to labour.
I sometimes wonder if this is where we went wrong when we tried to get MPs to help – we actually expected them to represent us because we thought it was their job to do so.
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Related posts:
- INZ incompetance or just plain old bribery?
- The Auditor General’s Report on Immigration New Zealand is out.
- Did we emigrate to New Zealand or Maoriland?
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