Hone should apologise for ripping off taxpayer - Goff

Maverick Maori MP Hone Harawira is standing by his racist language and ripping off the taxpayer, Labour leader Phil Goff said today.

Mr Harawira today apologised for his language today, but said he should have just expressed the same sentiments without using words such as "white motherf....ers".

While making his partial apology, Mr Harawira also said Mr Goff was a "bastard" who should be "lined up against a wall and shot" for Labour's passage of the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

Mr Goff laughed off the comments and said Mr Harawira had failed to address any of the issues.

"It is a silly comment. I can't take that sort of thing seriously, but what the public of New Zealand are looking for was an apology, an apology for ripping off the taxpayer, an apology for abusing people in racist and obscene language," Mr Goff said.

"There is no contrition there, he is proud of ripping the taxpayer off and he genuinely believes that white people are to blame for all of his problems."

There was a need for leadership from the Maori Party and Prime Minister John Key to take action as know no apology would do.

"If he apologises now that will be phoney because he actually believes that every problem he has is down somehow to Pakeha people in this country. That is simply a nonsense."

Mr Goff said he did not think his father would appreciate him being called a bastard, but the shooting comment was stupid.

"I have been abused by better people than Hone."

Mr Harawira told Radio Waatea that Mr Goff was out of line for saying he should be suspended from politics.

"The cheek of the bastard. If I should be suspended for swearing, him and his mates should be," he said.

"I'm saying to Phil Goff `beware mate, beware before you start throwing stones'."

The remarks followed an apology in which Mr Harawira said sorry for his language, but not his message, in a controversial email sent to former Waitangi Tribunal director Buddy Mikaere.

Mr Mikaere wrote to Mr Harawira over his decision to leave Brussels, where he was visiting as part of a parliamentary delegation, and take his wife to Paris for the day.

Mr Harawira responded: "White motherf...ers have been raping our lands and ripping us off for centuries and all of a sudden you want me to play along with their puritanical bullshit."

The Maori Party leadership, Mr Key, and Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres were among those who have called for an apology.

A spokesman for Mr Key said "he accepts he has apologised and in the end it's for New Zealanders to judge the issue".

He was not going to critique the apology.

Regarding the new attack on Mr Goff, he said "that's a debating matter he might wish to take up with the Labour Party".

Mr Harawira said sorry for his "poor choice of words" and the offence they caused.

He should have instead referred to what European colonisers had done, the MP for Te Tai Tokerau said.

The comments were not an attack against all Pakeha, he said, but had been taken that way.

"... and that's caused a lot of damage to my own credibility throughout the Te Tai Tokerau and throughout Aotearoa as well."

The MP said he was not a racist -- "Hone doesn't hate Pakehas. Hone's part Pakeha".