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Saturday, 28 November 2009 05:47 |
 Taito Phillip Field has created history twice in new Zealand. The first time was in 1993 when he became the first Pacific Islander to be elected to parliament, the second time was earlier this year when he became the first MP to be convicted of bribery and corruption.
Mr Field was found guilty of 11 of the 12 bribery and corruption charges and 15 of 23 of the obstruction of justice charges that were brought against him, receiving a sentence of 6 years.
Being charged with corruption means Field has betrayed his office as a member of parliament, and for that he is taken to court. Nothing is said about how he has betrayed his electorate, the working class people of Mangere, or how the Labour Party has betrayed the working class of New Zealand.
Taito Phillip Field was the MP of Mangere, one of the most working class electorates in the country. After winning it in 1996 he held the seat for the next decade. Despite the allegations emerging a week out form the election, Field won the Mangere electorate in 2005 by over 16000 - the largest majority of any electorate in New Zealand. In 2008, after leaving Labour and with charges hanging over his head, he lost the electorate.
What did Field do to deserve such loyal support? After more than 10 years as a member of parliament did he do anything to improve the lives of those in the electorate he represented? It is not as if Field does not know what it is like to be working class. Field immigrated to New Zealand from Samoa at age 7. He worked as a freezing worker before working his way up the union bureaucracy and into the Labour Party. So what exactly did Field achieve from his time in parliament, aside from time in prison?
Field managed to make himself a millionaire. Much has been made in the media about his conviction for corruption but little has been said about fact he owns a controlling stake in a property development company or that he owns seven properties, five of them in Mangere (Register of pecuniary interests 2006). Besides being in trouble for his own actions, his company, T P Field Developments Ltd, was in trouble with the courts for doing renovations without first getting a permit. Field knew he needed a permit but proceeded anyway.
Field’s story is similar to that of the Labour Party. The New Zealand Labour Party has working class roots. It was born from the socialist movement and it is the child of struggles that were part of the legacy of European working class politics and, since the Labour-Ratana alliance, indigenous resistance to colonisation. It has been in and out of office for the past century, but how much has it achieved?
The first Labour government did found the welfare state but, on the other hand, it dismanted the welfare state in the 1980s. The economic reforms of the fourth Labour government were certainly not in the best interest of the working class of New Zealand. They resulted in the wages of 70 per cent of the population stagnating or declining for the 20 years that followed. The next time Labour was in power, the Helen Clark government, maintained the same basic neo-liberal economic policy as the preceding one had done. Labour abandoned the working class.
The main focus of the Labour party is the Labour party. Its main concern is to be elected, not what it is going to do when it is elected. This is similar to the self-interest of Field, although the system reprimanded him for his actions which will never happen to Labour. It is unsurprising that what happened with Taito Phillip Field - when you have a party that has betrayed the working class you are going to get individuals within it who betray the working class.
Instead of Taito Phillip Field and the Labour Party, what is needed is true representatives of the working class and a true workers party. Despite its heritage Labour has severed its working class roots, and though it still gets support from working people it does not represent the workers of New Zealand. A party representing the working class would not have candidates who are re-elected with bribery and corruption charges hanging over their head.
Taito Phillip Field should be ashamed for his betrayal of the people of Mangere and his betrayal of the people of New Zealand but more fundamentally, Labour should never be forgiven for rewarding their most loyal voters from South Auckland, the working class heart of New Zealand with a conman for their representative. Field has had his day of reckoning. Labour is yet to be held to account.
GT Taylor |
