Former Labour Party MP and minister Taito Phillip Field has died.
Field was a Labour MP from 1993 to 2008, and served as a minister outside Cabinet in Helen Clark's Labour-led Government from 2003 to 2005.
He succeeded former Prime Minister David Lange in the Māngere seat. He was a Minister outside Cabinet, with the portfolios of Associate Minister for Pacific Island Affairs, Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment, and Associate Minister for Justice.
In 2009 Field was jailed for six years after being convicted of 11 charges of bribery and corruption. He was granted parole in 2011 and returned to his home in Auckland.
It was alleged Field had used his position as an MP to obtain a work permit for a non-resident who had worked as a tiler at reduced hourly rates on his home in his birth country of Samoa.
Field also faced allegations he used his position to get a discounted price for a property deal he had constructed with low-income welfare beneficiaries in his electorate.
In 2006 after allegations of improper behaviour were raised in a TVNZ Sunday programme, then-Prime Minister Clark said Field should reconsider his future as an MP.
Police launched an investigation the following day into the claims against Field. He was put on indefinite paid leave from Parliament by the Labour Party.
Field was expelled from the party in 2007 following the controversies around allegations that he had improperly used his influence as an MP. He returned to Parliament as an independent.
In 2008 Field lost his Māngere seat to Aupito William Sio, who is the current Minister for Pacific Peoples. Field's New Zealand Pacific Party won just 0.37 percent of party votes cast, well below the 5 percent threshold needed to enter Parliament.
It's understood Field was 68 when he died.
