Winston Peters: Deputy Prime Minister on the Darleen Tana situation, Christopher Luxon's visit to the United States

After spending 114 days, more than half her Parliamentary career, suspended, Darleen Tana was defiant after she left the Green Party over the weekend, jumping before she was pushed.  

She remains as an MP for now, unless she heeds the plea of Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick to “please resign” from Parliament altogether, or the Greens decide to invoke the waka-jumping bill, controversial among party members – and which the Greens had tried to repeal as recently as three years ago.  

After going to ground, Tana released a statement on Monday evening, saying she did “not accept” the findings of an independent report into allegations involving her connections to alleged migrant exploitation at her husband’s bike company. Tana said she was “deeply concerned” by the way the Greens had summarised its findings. 

“The report does not say that migrant exploitation has occurred, let alone that I am responsible for it in any capacity,” Tana said. 

Tana said she did not have “natural justice” and the party had a “pre-determined view” of what it wanted to do with her. Tana quit the party after a long caucus meeting on Sunday at which she was given the chance to respond to the conclusions of the report. Swarbrick said the report showed Tana’s conduct fell “far short of the expectations” set for Green MPs. 

Tana then left the meeting to allow the caucus to debate and decide on her fate. Before the caucus could decide, Tana quit. 

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters told Newstalk ZB’s Andrew Dickens that the scandal was a “disgrace”. 

He said he thought she “probably won’t” leave parliament, and would instead join the Te Pāti Māori. 

“She’s still there, and she should not be there, in the sense that everybody should be accountable and she’s not.” 

Peters claimed the Greens were “not doing everything they can” to ensure she leaves Parliament. 

”They could expel her… they could make it very clear that she is no longer a member of their party.” 

Christopher Luxon is making a crucial visit to the United States, during a crucial time for the world. 

The Prime Minister is due to touch down in Washington DC this afternoon. 

On his agenda are meetings with Nato leaders and influential Republican law maker Ted Cruz. 

Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters told Dickens the visit comes during a time of huge uncertainty for the western world. 

He says the escalating war in Ukraine will be of huge concern for Nato countries, and the US, French and UK elections have all been going through pivotal elections. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Prime Minister christpher Luxon, of course, in the United States
of America. New Zealand invited to join the conference with
NATO to discuss the issues of the day. Therefore, the
acting Prime Minister is now Winston Peters, who joins me. Now,
good morning, Winston, good morning, and with your head on
as a foreign minister and with the Prime Minister in
the United States of America. What are you hoping that
we and he gets out of his trip to America.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, he's arriving at a very bad time in the
conference in the sense of the Lesclating war in Ukraine.
This is going to be of serious concern to all
the NATO countries, and of course you've got the oncoming
election in United States where things are very uncertain, as
they were in France and now they were in the
UK in recent weeks. So this is a very interesting trip.

(00:46):
But it's very important for him and also has the
chance to make connections on the West Coast in particular
with suspect to New Zealand's economic future.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Indeed, and talking with Apple as well, which is fascinating.
What's happening there.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
We'll have to wait until the conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
What the conversation is about all right, okay, the issue
of the day of the week, of the last one
hundred and sixteen days is Darling Tanner is now asked
to resign from Parliament. Your feelings on the case and
our electoral law at the moment.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well, our electoral law is fine, except that it's not
being enforced. This is a disgrace. I mean, forty two
thousand dollars or taxpayers money has been used by the
Greens to find out what was going on when they
should have been spent their own money. You've got someone
who has been told that she should keep parliament. She
probably won't. She probably go and joined the Mari party.
And then you've got these pures saying we will not

(01:40):
enforce the law that's already there now to ensure that
the proportionality of parliament remains. And it demonstrates that, you know,
some parties are getting away with stuff because there were
members there with claiming qualifications they never had. They were
never challenged by their mainstream media. There comes another example
where this level of tolerance for a party that's demost
trading every day, how bad it would be if they

(02:02):
ever got to be in control of the government. And nevertheless,
in these circumstances, she's still there and she should not
be there in the sense that everybody's got to be accountable,
and she's not. Well.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
They're claiming that they've done everything they can. They asked
you to resign for the party. That she resigns, then
it's up to her to go to the Speaker and
resign herself. But as I said earlier.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
And so they're not doing it, and they can. They
could expel her and then they could have very clear
to the Speaker that she's no longer a member of
their party, and they would mean that she would have
to stand down as an MP. All the law is
right in front of them, written for such circumstances. But
the question is you chose this person who could not
be trusted, and how you're saying that it's all the
rest of us and our problem about getting rid of

(02:48):
this person. Whether it's a male or female MP, doesn't matter.
It's simply not satisfactory and.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Their attitude towards public money. The public did provide forty
three thousand dollars, but that was until six weeks ago
when then, of course, the Greens started to privately finance
their investigation due to that, they're now saying they can't
reveal the cost of the investigation because they have to
tell their members first, and you'll find out in the
financial papers at the end of the financial gear is
that is that a press true? But is that an

(03:15):
appropriate way of behavior?

Speaker 2 (03:17):
That's not a private way to be our behavior? That's
true above the forty two thousand. But why did they
spend the forty two thousand of taxpayers money when they
should not have in the first place. I mean, this
is a case I've been a member of the Fans
of Report recounition. By speaking Mallard, only one party survived
the fans reporting their lamination and parliament behavior, and there

(03:37):
was usual first, so they didn't say so and here
we go again covering things up. Now here's the point.
She's also not been a palm for over one hundred days.
How can you get away with that? But that's the
Green Party standard and they ever gotten the government, there'll
be chaos in this country.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
They have a lot of people they have to talk
to before they'll talk to us, it seems. Now your
trip to the Pacific, how is the Pacific? What do
you think came out of it?

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Well. We went to the Solomon Islands and Naaru and
Neway Solomon's courses a struggling economy, and we went to
open the Segey Airport, which we financed with Australia. These
partnerships are seriously working. It was a very good trip
in the context of seeing everybody that mattered. We took
a high high out cross party team from National New Zealand,

(04:26):
First Letter and the Greens and we had excellent meetings
in all three countries. So it was very worthwhile in
catching up as fast as we can in an area
that's been seriously neglected. And the point they made to
us was we see something new coming from New Zealand.
We see an intensity of interest in our region that
we haven't seen for a long time.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yes. And if you have a vacuum or nature of bores,
vacuum and influences.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
It gets filled yea.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
It gets filled with people like China, doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
I'm not saying what this gets filled by. But we
have a duty in our background nations around us, in
our neighborhood, and it's part of our long term security
to pay attention, play our role and ensure along with
other countries. I believe in the rule of la democracy,
freedom and the right to worship freely as well that

(05:15):
those things are not lost because of our resignation from
our responsibilities.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
So Christopher Bishop has come up with you housing crisis policies,
which means increasing land. So we're going out, we're also
going up, and we're also going small. No limits, no
minimum limits. Were you surprised at the backlash against shoe
box housing and that part of the debate over the
past week.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
I want't surprised because there's so many people in this
debate who are so disconnected to reality. Would they want
people to go on living under a bridge, living in
a tent, living in a living in horrible circumstances, or
to want to give them a chance. The reality is
we were the ones that brought in thirty square meters
we call them GNI flats back then. They're now sixty
square meters, requiring only an engineer's report, and people are

(05:55):
flocking to build those circums in those circumstances. Why don't
we ask the market what they want rather than have
the so called experts whose record is not to produce
some media enough houses in the way that we did
in the former time when we really were a popularting
democracy and we had a proud record. But there of course,
back then we had practical members of Parliament knew a
bit about poverty. Now I got far from the experts.

(06:16):
I don't know and want their standards to be maintained.
Despite the fact that we're slipping very badly in our
home ownership. We want young people to get a first
chance to get into their first home, get on the
ladder going forward.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
Mister Peter's active Prime Minister. I thank you for your
time today. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen
live to news talks it'd be from six am weekdays,
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