Maori Party MP Hone Harawira believes the controversy over him going Awol from a meeting in Brussels, is a "another storm in a bloody teacup."
The member for Te Tai Tokerau was leading a group of three MPs who travelled to Europe last month when he decided to skip a European parliamentary delegation meeting to go sightseeing in Paris.
He says he met with the chairman of the meeting the night before.
"We discussed a lot of the issues and she was comfortable that we'd covered the issues in our discussions and would be happy to discuss the rest of them with the other two members the next day. It's not as if going away to Paris I missed discussing the issues that I wanted to raise with her anyway.
"There were two other MPs there. I told one of them that I was going before I went. I told the chairperson and she was OK with it, so, what's the fuss?"
Mr Harawira says he is a hard working MP who takes the opportunity for time out when it is available, which is a rarity. He says he paid for the extra travel himself.
He is now now under investigation.
