Chlöe Swarbrick: Green Party co-leader on the 'unanimous' vote to invoke waka jumping law against Darleen Tana

Chlöe Swarbrick is confident in the Greens' argument about proportionality of the House being affected by now independent MP Darleen Tana.  

Party delegates have voted to ask Speaker Gerry Brownlee to oust Tana from Parliament, invoking the waka-jumping law it has previously opposed.  

It's now down to Brownlee to decide if Tana's resignation from the party —but not Parliament— affects the proportionality of the House.  

The Green Party co-leader told Mike Hosking she's proud the 185 delegates representing thousands of members all came to the conclusion. 

She says it was a unanimous and resounding consensus, which demonstrates that the party's moving forward together on the issue. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Greens have met again, Darline Tanner will be waker
jumped out of Parliament. The official side of that decision,
which is by the way, was unanimous, goes to the
Speaker of the House of course. Now co leader Chloe
Swarbrook is with us. Very good morning to you. Do
you have any sense of whether there's a problem with
Brownley at all or he will simply tick the box.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
So I don't want to speak on behalf of the speaker.
I think that'd be entirely remisses me. But I think
that he will consider yes, the legislation properly. And look,
we're feeling pretty confident about how things are in terms
of the effect on proportionality here.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
How big a hurdle was it for you guys to
get past your dislike of the law.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, look, I think it's been aired pretty publicly over
the last several months that we've been working through this.
We do have a vex history on this legislation, and
there's statements from former party co leaders and there's a
lot of reckons out there in the ether. But this
is what deliberate of democracy looks like. You know. I
feel really proud of the fact that last night, one
hundred and eighty five delegates representing all of our membership,

(00:59):
our thousands of members all across the country, having had
their own sorah and deliberative processes, and their local branches
and provinces and networks, all came to this conclusion. And
the fact that it was this kind of unanimous or
rather resounding or consensus, I think yeah, really demonstrates that
we as a party and moving forward together on this issue.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Is it possible you were wrong on the law given
you've now used it and seen its benefits.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
I'll be the first person to say that everybody should
be open to changing their mind when confronted with complexity
or new evidence or information. That's humanity, That is what
evolution is supposed to look like, Mike. So you know,
we even had some old wiseheads from our party reflecting
on that on the call last night, and we also
made the points that all of those former statements by

(01:44):
former CO leaders, especially our founding former CO leaders, need
to be taken in light of the context at the time.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Indeed, so can we now say your position on the
law has changed as a party, Well.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Our position on the law has historically really boiled down
to Turkey's things which I think we've and our conversations
on this in the past. The first is and of
that concentration of power. So the law itself prescribes effectively
that it goes to party leadership to work this through
with their caucus, and that if there is a seventy
five percent vote in favor of that caucus, then you
can move ahead with things. Here, I think we went

(02:16):
a lot further than that, and obviously going out to
our full membership. So I think everybody needs to understand
that that is the key caviat here. We haven't just
operated as the law prescribed. We've gone far above and beyond,
and obviously also ed all of this in the public debate.
And the second thing is real concern about how, for example,
a member could be ejected for standing on a matter
of principle. And that's why we work so hard to

(02:38):
kick this executive summary out there into the public arena
so that everybody who can see these facts can see
that Unfortunately, in this case of Alan Kana, this is
not a matter of a principled stance. It's since that
quite the opposite. So I think with those two key
principles kind of steps net sure in certain circumstances. Of course,
you can say that we would take these steps because
we've taken them. As a yes.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Say good stuff, Go forward with a Chloe Swelbrick, Green
co Leader. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen
live to News Talks at B from six am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio