Former Labour MP (Taito) Phillip Hans Field was sentenced to six years' prison on Tuesday. Field’s sentencing was the final chapter in the most disgraceful behaviour in Parliament since Parliament first convened in May 1854 after the UK granted us our own Parliament in 1852.

Field is not the first member of Parliament to have been a crook. But what makes him unique is that his offending was directly related to his job. He used his position to enrich himself at the expense of vulnerable new immigrants.

Many people have expressed surprise at the length of his prison sentence, noting it is longer than the sentences for many violent criminals. But a reading of Justice Hansen’s sentencing notes makes clear that in fact Field has got off lightly.

Field was convicted of 11 charges under s103(1) of the Crimes Act 1961, being “Corruption and bribery of member of Parliament”. This has been an offence under New Zealand law since at least 1908. Its history though in fact goes back to 1695 in the United Kingdom, when the House of Commons resolved that offering a bribe to a Member of Parliament shall be a high crime and misdemeanour which subverts the English constitution, and that an MP accepting such a bribe shall be a matter of privilege.

In New Zealand, both offering and accepting such bribes are deemed serious crimes with a maximum sentence of seven years' jail.

Field was also convicted on 15 charges under s116 of attempting to pervert the course of justice. This is also a serious crime with a maximum seven year jail term. The two sets of crimes were considered distinct offending so Field faced a maximum sentence of 14 years jail.

His offending occurred between September 2003 and late 2006. In 2002 Helen Clark appointed him as a parliamentary under-secretary and she again promoted him in 2003 to the Ministry making him associate minister for Pacific Island affairs and ironically the associate minister of justice. He was never elected to these positions by the Labour caucus – his promotions came as the personal gift of Helen Clark.

From 2003 to 2005, he accepted thousands of hours of free labour from grateful Thai immigrants, after he got his close friend, Associate Immigration Minister Damien O’Connor to over-ride his officials and grant them residence. Some would say that O’Connor is fortunate to have escaped close scrutiny for his approval of so many appeals against decisions of the NZ Immigration Service when they were made by Field. In fact the conviction of Field raises real questions about whether Ministers should have such unfettered discretion to allow people in, regardless of policy.

Field profited greatly from the free or near-free labour from his grateful immigrants – many of whom joined the Thai branch of the Labour Party. He purchased a house at 42 Allan St in August 2003 and after his band of serfs went to work, he sold it a few months later for a $60,000 profit.

Another property on Kinghorne St made him an $87,000 profit, and of course in Samoa he had the famous Sunan Siriwan working for just $100 a week. At the same time as Labour was raising the minimum wage to $12 an hour, their associate minister of justice was paying someone around $2.50 an hour.

The perverting the course of justice convictions are relatively simple. He lied time and time again to Noel Ingram QC, author of the Ingram Report into Field’s misconduct. And worse, he bullied others to lie. Knowing that Helen Clark had not given any power to Ingram to require testimony under oath, Field thought he could get away with this. Field also arranged fake invoices, receipts and quotes.

After the Police started their investigation, Field again pressured his Thai army to lie to the Police and stick with their false stories.

As Field’s offending was unique in New Zealand’s parliamentary history, the judge had no direct precedent to guide him in sentencing. The closest cases he could find was a Customs officer who took bribes and got four years jail. However he, unlike Field, pled guilty and co-operated fully. Without that he would have got six years.

An overseas precedent was a Canadian MP who got five years' jail for a one-off 10 years $10,000 bribe. Closer to home a New South Wales minister got 10 years for taking bribes to let prisoners out early.

Justice Hansen found that the appropriate sentence for the bribery would be five years, and for the perverting the course of justice four years. He then reduced the total of nine years to seven and a half years as the two categories of offending were linked together, and finally reduced it further to six years to take account of Field’s previous community service and other mitigating factors.

Normally if a colleague is found to have acted corruptly, his or her former colleagues will talk about the sense of betrayal they feel at his offending. In Field’s case he not only became the first person in our history to be found guilty of bribery and corruption as an MP, his offending ran contrary to everything the Labour Party prides itself on – standing up for the most vulnerable in society and ensuring everyone is paid a decent wage for their work.

This was an opportunity for Labour to put behind them the shameful defence of Field by the previous leadership of Helen Clark and Michael Cullen. The Ingram Report detailed many of Field’s abuses and made it very clear Ingram felt Field had lied to him. However Clark said she would not rule out Field returning to the Ministry one day, and Cullen defended him in the House as a hard working MP.

But Labour has refused to comment on the conviction of their former colleague for the crimes he undertook while Associate Minister of Justice. Phil Goff and Annette King passed up the opportunity to tell New Zealanders how disgusted they are with their former colleague and their sense of betrayal. Instead upon his conviction all we got was a press release from the youthful chief whip Darren Hughes saying Labour acknowledges the decision of the jury.

This sits in huge contrast to the actions of another party in dealing with a corrupt MP. Donna Awatere-Huata was exposed by the Dominion Post as having misappropriated money from her education trust. This offending wasn’t actually in her capacity as an MP. Nevertheless the other ACT MPs were so disgusted by what they read, they demanded she explain herself or leave the party. When she refused, they tried to expel her from Parliament. She fought this and ACT spent probably over $100,000 of its own money going all the way to the Supreme Court to get her expelled. The party won.

Some time ago I phoned up then ACT Leader Richard Prebble and asked him if he could detail to me everything they did to force Awatere-Huata out. I explained I wanted to contrast their resolve to condemn such corruption, with Labour’s defence of Field.

I was staggered when Richard said he did not want to be held up as a role model. He explained that he actually felt guilty that they didn’t do more. Perhaps they should have asked questions earlier he said, as there was the odd rumour about her.

I leave readers with that comparison. One party that went all the way to the Supreme Court to force a corrupt MP out of Parliament, and then still felt guilty that it didn’t do more.

And another party that received a 158 page report detailing the numerous abuses and lies of one of their own MPs, and resolved to defend him. Desperate not to upset a core constituency their leader said one day he could be a minister again. Their deputy leader said his only crime was to work too hard. They posed with him for the TV cameras as he claimed to be exonerated. And then two years later after he is sentenced to six years jail, the new leader and deputy leader still refuse to condemn him. They refuse to say whether or not they think he did in fact break the law. They refuse to express any remorse, shame or disgust over not just his behaviour, but their party’s behaviour in defending him.

Can Labour ever be deemed fit to hold office again until they do so?