Earning that reputation

A couple of days ago I responded to Sue Bradford's final complaint about public attitudes to MPs by pointing out that they have collectively worked very, very hard to earn our contempt. And right on cue, Hone Harawira blows off work on a Parliamentary delegation to the European Parliament in favour of a taxpayer-subsidized sightseeing trip to Paris:

Maori Party MP Hone Harawira is being investigated after skipping a European parliamentary delegation meeting to make a 300km dash from Brussels to go sightseeing in Paris.

He was leading a three-MP group that travelled to Europe last month for meetings in Brussels and Geneva when he decided on the jaunt.

"How many times in my lifetime am I going to get to Europe? So I thought, 'F*** it, I'm off. I'm off to Paris'," he said yesterday.

And that's the problem in a nutshell: we pay for public service, we get self-interest. If Harawira was an employee, he would unquestionably be sacked for this. But he's not an employee, he's a politician - and so we have to put up with him until 2011, and the only hope we have of getting rid of him is that the voters of Northland will tire of these sorts of abuses of the public trust.

But Harawira's not the only one at fault here:

[Harawira] said he told Ms Shanks before going to Paris, but had not spoken to Dr Prasad until his return.

"He [Dr Prasad] had a laugh and said, 'Well, what goes on tour stays on tour'."

Neither said anything - we only found out about it because Harawira wrote about it in his newsletter. Its this cozy little attitude of looking the other way and covering up for each other which enables misbehaviour and abuse, and makes all politicians co-conspirators in the public eye.