Catherine Delahunty: former Green MP says it's likely the Greens could resort to utilising waka-jumping legislation to oust Darleen Tana

A former Green MP says it's possible the party will use contentious legislation to boot Darleen Tana from Parliament.

The party has asked her to resign, after reports revealed she probably knew about worker exploitation at her husband's bike business.

E Cycles NZ has entered liquidation and Tana's left the Greens, but she won't say whether she will remain an independent MP.

In the past, the Greens have strongly opposed waka-jumping.

Catherine Delahunty says events now give them a real dilemma.

"In the past, when there's been a tricky issue - they take it to the party and listen to the members as much as they can, and I think that's quite likely to happen."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Green Party has released the executive summary of the
Darling Tana Report. As we kind of already know thanks
to the leaks of the report, the report found that
it is likely Darling Tanner knew more about migrant exploitation
allegations at her husband's business than she had perhaps led on.
The Green Party leadership is still noncommittal about whether or
not Darling Tana is likely to find herself walker jumped

(00:22):
out of Parliament anytime soon. Catherine Della Hunty is a
former Green MP and is with us this evening. Kilder,
Good evening, Well, Kilder Jack. Can you see the Green
Party holding its nose and using the Walker jumping law
to push Darling Tanner out?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
I think it's possible. I think that because they've got AGM.
My experience of the Greenses in the past is when
there's been a big tricky issue, they take it to
the party and listen to the members as much as
they can, and I think that's quite likely to happen
given the timing of their AGM soon.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
So you think that it's likely, as opposed to the
Carker deciding to use the Waker Jumping bill, that they'll
go to the AGM put that to members, there'll be
a vote and depending on the decision at that vote,
if Darling Tanna was still in Parliament, they might choose
to invoke the walker jumping law.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, I don't know that there'll be a vote. There
may be a process check. Green politics is always a process, yeah,
and I mean it means people get heard and that
this happened once before. I remember when Jibet Sit Simons
had to make a call as a leader of the
party on climate change. She went and talked to a
large number of people the party and listened up. They
didn't actually vote, they just talked and then she got

(01:34):
enormous amount of support for the position she took. So
I don't know what position the party will take on this.
There's a history which of course goes right back to
New Labor Alliance days whereby the Greens supported the right
to walker jump, and so it's a difficult situation for them.
It's a real dilemma.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Did do you think Darling Tana has a mandate to
remain in Parliament?

Speaker 2 (02:00):
I mean, as a former List MP, I think your
mandate comes an awful lot from your party. And although
you know, I don't know I support people like Tuddy
Naturia doing what she needed to do to leave the
Labor Party and Rodin Jeanette leaving the Alliance. I think
they were on very strong ethical grounds when they did that,

(02:23):
because they were going to create new parties. I think
it's difficult when you're an individual who's been accused of
the issues, which I'm not able to really comment on.
I don't know enough about it, but I think it's
difficult to say that's a mandate when you're an individual
and you're going to go independent. And also, I think
it's hard to survive effectively independent if you're not in

(02:45):
the political party. Under the current political system, it's very
difficult to be effective. And if you look at the
history of most of the people who have they've not
been kicked out, but they haven't had a party. They
haven't they haven't been able to do very much.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
No, No, that's the thing. How effective can you really
be as an independent MP? Do you reckon if the
if the Greens did use the Waker jumping law, that
they would be punished by voters.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Actually, no, I don't think this is one of the
court issues that Green voters.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
I agree.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
I think that I think people just go well when
they when they when they were anti woker jumping, they
were talking about parties. Then there's individual cases and it's
very difficult to write law that covers all all situations
and the difference between an individual who with whom they've
lost based and trust on both sides, and and when

(03:35):
when there's people who are about where when it really
is about a co propper, Really it is about a
co crapper with which it was with Taliana even though
she's electrical MP, she still had a mandate from the
tongue of the Fenerala right across the country, huge ground
school of support for her over the Foresheran seabed, which
is a different situation.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
It is it's a question of policy in that in
that circumstance, isn't it. Thank you so much for your
time form the Green MP Catherine Delahunty. For more from
Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to News Talks ed
B from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.