Jason Walls: ZB political editor on Darleen Tana breaking her silence in exclusive interview

Embattled ex-Green MP Darleen Tana has broken her silence after backing away from the party.

Tana spoke to 1News in her first sit-down interview since she quit the Greens - but she hasn't confirmed any plans to leave Parliament altogether. 

ZB political editor Jason Walls says it's unlikely Darleen Tana will step down.

"She says she's going to be making a decision soon. My read on all of this - it sounds like she's not going anywhere. She keeps coming back to the values that she brings to the table in terms of being an MP."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
News, he'd be political to Jason Walls is with us
this evening. Hey Jason, good evening, Jack. So what did
you make of the full Darlene Tana sit down interview?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
You know, it was enlightening in how much we didn't learn,
And I know that sounds counterintuitive, but it was a
bit of an exercise in reading between the lines. The
big question is, of course, what happens next, and that
was asked, but I don't think it was really answered sufficiently.
At present, she's an independent MP as she's resigned from
the Greens, or more accurately, she was made to resign

(00:32):
from the Greens, but she still remains a member of Parliament.
So obviously the question is will she resign from parliament?
And her answer was that she's taking advice from EWE
and Hapu. She says a lot of people have reached
out to her asking her to continue to do the
machy that she's doing.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Now.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Just what the machy is remains a little unclear because
she's been an MP for all of nine months and
spent about half of that on leaves. So essentially she
says she's going to be making a decision soon. So
my read on all of this, it sounds like she's
not going anywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
She keeps coming.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Back to the values that she brings to the table.
In terms of being an MP. She talks about how
she was the only MP that could weave Tiamari science
and politics together, and you don't say these sorts of
things unless you're digging in for the long haul, which
very much sounds like she is now. When asked about
the timeframe, she said that the ball was in the

(01:24):
Green Party's court, So it sounds like we're actually in
line for a bit of a bit of a showdown here.
The Greens were extremely against the Waker Jumping Bill, you'll remember,
and that legislation allows parties to expel members of parliament
if they leave the party that they came into parliament with.
The Green say it's anti democratic and fought tooth and
nail against it to be introduced and voted into Parliament

(01:47):
a few years ago. And now they're faced with somewhat
of a Sophie's choice trigger the Waker Jumping legislation. Expel
darleying Tana but make themselves extreme hypocrites, or stick to
their values and have darli In Tanna sitting in Parliament
for the better part of two and a half years,
depriving them of having their own new Green MP coming

(02:07):
into Parliament. So obviously it's a tough choice for the
Greens there. But at the end of the day, let's
not lose sight of the fact that it is one quote
MP with no constituents, no mandate at all, holding everybody
else hostage taxpayer's expense. So she should make the right
call herself and walk away from all of this. But
it sounds, as I've said, like she's not going to

(02:28):
do that now. In terms of the Green Party's response,
it was a very very Green Party response. Ricardo Menendez
March said, the planet is burning and wealth in quality
is growing and we have to fight to for it
all and Dary needs to remind herself that no one
is bigger than the party and therefore the best thing
for the collective movement would be for her to move on.

(02:50):
So they've drawn a bit of a line in the
sand here.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Jason David Seymour has made his expectations clear to FARMAC.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
So what he said, it's an interesting one, this one.
He's basically made public his letters of expectation. Now this
happens all the time. A few weeks ago, Nikola Willis
sent about fifty of them off and you just eventually
find them buried on the Treasury website. Essentially, you send
as a minister what your expectations are to the ministries
that you're in charge of. Today, Associate Health Minister David

(03:20):
Seymour called a press conference to do it for FARMAC.
So it's clear that he wanted to put the spotlight
on what he was announcing today because he did it
so publicly. So in the letter and the subsequent press conference,
David Seymour said that he's made it clear the need
for FARMAC to focus on delivering improved health outcomes underpinned
by robust data in evidence. But here's the kicker. One

(03:42):
change that I've outlined is that I do not believe
it is appropriate to require FARMAC to continue to consider
how it can contributes to embedding the Treaty of Waipangi
across the health sector, which was the expectations in the
previous government's letters of expectations. He went on to say
that farmac's roles should folkus on serving all New Zealanders
based on actual need, without assigning their background as a

(04:05):
proxy of needs and so obviously there's going to be
a lot of pushback on this one. There's going to
be a lot of discussions. I'll be interested to hear
what those that are against this have to say against
this argument, because it's the bedrock of FARMAC. It probably
should be the fact that everybody gets the same access
based on need of their access to the medicine rather
than anything else. So there's a lot about partnership and

(04:28):
various different objectives in the letter of expectation that he's
made clear that he's made available now. But of course
the big news is the treaty of white tonguey stuff.
Paula Bennett, who is the new head honcho over there
at FARMAC, seemed very very receptive to all of this
and stood up and after Seymour in the press conference
and said that we will be listening differently and really

(04:49):
commended Seymour. So it'd be interesting to see where this
one ends up.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
He's going to be with us after five, so we
can ask him too. Thank you so much, Jason. That
is News Storks. He'd be political editor Jason Walls. For
more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to News
Talks A B from four pm weekdays, or follow the
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