By Giles Dexter
Darleen Tana's fate is now over to Green Party members after the co-leaders formally initiated the process to get their former colleague removed from Parliament at the party's AGM in Christchurch over the weekend.
Party delegates will re-convene on September 1 to decide whether to use the so-called party-hopping legislation against Tana.
But debate over the legislation's use has already prompted some fractures, with three Green members choosing to resign from the party.
The letter, published in-full on Radio Waatea, said the three members felt "culturally unsafe" in the Greens and had suffered from and witnessed actions that have "diminished, demeaned, and disempowered [their] cultural, spiritual and familial wellbeing".
Their resignations came shortly after the co-leaders confirmed they had written to Tana that the now-independent MP's continued presence was distorting the proportionality of Parliament.
"Not only by virtue of us now being reduced to 14 MPs and 14 votes in Parliament whilst entitled to 15 at the most recent general election, but also the implications on for example, Question Time and our Parliamentary budget.
"This will curtail our ability to do the outreach that people in this country voted for with three 330,000 votes at the most recent election," Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said.
That mention of the budget appeared to have concerned the three members, who said the process was being rushed because of the budget and not because of Tana's alleged treatment of migrant workers.
They said Tana's "character, integrity, and mana" was being smeared, saying for them it drew "re-triggering" parallels with the party's treatment of former MP Elizabeth Kerekere (Aiono is married to Kerekere), and a perceived double standard with the co-leaders' statements about Tana compared with those they have made about Julie-Anne Genter.
"Minimising her behaviour because an apology was given rings very hollow indeed when both wāhine Māori women MPs were silenced, not allowed to be at Parliament and left with no choice but to resign.
"Why were they so hypocritically held to this mythical standard of behaviour when others are not?" Laufiso said.
The three members also felt the party had disregarded the Pasifika Greens after the death of Fa'anānā Efeso Collins.
"Between us, we Sāmoans, collectively carry significant cultural knowledge amounting to hundreds of years of lived experience of fa'alavelave such as this.
"Yet we were not called upon for advice or guidance. No welfare checks for us nor an invitation to stand with the party while members throughout the motu heaved in sadness and shock," Laufiso said.
Speaking to media before the resignations, and just after the letter had been sent to Tana, Swarbrick said the best way to minimise harm and any further collateral damage was for Tana to resign, and the party could avoid the party-hopping issue altogether.
"Let me be really clear: this sucks. This is not a situation that I think any one of us or our party wanted to be confronted with. But we have been so we're dealing with it."
She said Tana had "betrayed" the Greens' principles, and was not responding to texts, calls, or emails from co-leader Marama Davidson who - despite being away from Parliament to undergo treatment for breast cancer - wanted to take the lead on the outreach.
Writing to the MP concerned is a requirement of the party-hopping legislation, and Tana has 21 days to respond to the co-leaders' letter.
But Swarbrick said the final step - writing to Parliament's Speaker - would not happen without the party's approval.
"We're a party that is very proud of the fact that we have a lot of divergent opinions, and really love a yarn, really love pulling an issue apart and putting it back together, investigating it from a lot of different perspectives.
"It's probably one of the most Green Party things in the world, [to] have set up a process in which to make a decision in which our membership has been brought along for the ride, in terms of how we go about setting up that process in the first place."
Around 200 party delegates will spend between now and 1 September speaking to their branches to consider the option, and any defence Tana may put up.
They will then hold a Special General Meeting, with 75 percent of delegates required to decide to party-hop Tana before the co-leaders write to the Speaker.
Swarbrick told Morning Report on Monday the letter from the members who resigned was "pretty charged" and came from a place of upset and the part needed to take time to consider it.
She said no one had been forced to make any decision at the weekend about what was happening with Tana.
"I'm really proud of the work we have done to consistently uphold natural justice. I'd say personally under an immense amount of media scrutiny and pressure over the last four months in particular that we have done everything we can to not jeopardise this process."
Despite the resignations, members RNZ spoke to outside the AGM were largely happy with how things had landed.
"The Greens wouldn't use that process without full reflection at every opportunity to look at the consequences," said one member.
"It enables a just decision to be made," they said.
"The process has always been done with Green membership and Green values at its forefront," said another member.
None, however, were willing to offer up an opinion on the legislation itself, or whether it should be used.
Throughout the weekend Swarbrick insisted the Tana situation was just one part of the AGM. She and Davidson were re-confirmed as co-leaders, and in Davidson's absence Swarbrick delivered both keynote speeches.
Her first encouraged members to go through some "growing pains" and make time for "slow, new, potentially hard" conversations if they wanted the Green movement to grow.
Swarbrick laid out a vision that not only could the Green Party become the world's dominant Green movement, but also the dominant force on New Zealand's Left - but only if members rolled up their sleeves.
In the speech, she tasked members with winning over people who may align themselves with Green values, but had not voted Green before, or who had become jaded with politics altogether.
She said she had spoken to people who voted for her in Auckland Central, but could not bring themselves to give the Greens their party vote at the last election. (The Greens received 8503 votes; National got 11751.)
Before his death, Faʻanānā Efeso Collins had discussed with her plans for more outreach into South Auckland, a traditional Labour stronghold, Swarbrick said.
Swarbrick's second speech of the weekend went after the government on its climate and social policies. She asked members to get 10 people they knew to sign an open letter to the Prime Minister on renters' rights - and then to get those 10 people to speak to 10 more people, and so on.
It was in keeping with the Greens' "flaxroots" style of campaigning, but members RNZ spoke to were up to the challenge to do more for the movement.
"I don't blame people for wanting to switch off. It can be exhausting, and that's what Christopher Luxon is aiming for people to do.
"But the best way I've found is just to find something in common with someone, and if they start complaining about it, be like, 'Yeah, me too, dude!' " said one member.
"Even though life can be pretty hard, we have to keep working on building those relationships in between elections, with the people who are so hard-hit by the current policies," said another.
One member conceded the Greens had historically not done enough for some communities, such as South Auckland and Pacific communities.
"A lot of it's going to be about reaching out to groups that haven't realised about how the Green mission already aligns with their basic personal values."
Greens need to win back trust - Swarbrick
At a media stand-up in Christchurch today, where the party is holding its AGM, Swarbrick said she expected to have a 'far larger' Green movement going into 2026 general election.
She said she did not expect the coalition government to be so anti-environment.
"You're talking about a government that is talking about rewriting the founding document of New Zealand, it's absolutely bonkers that this is the stuff on their agenda."
MP Darleen Tana was ousted by the Greens and asked to quit politics altogether this month after an independent investigation found it was likely that she knew about allegations of worker exploitation at husband Christian Hoff-Nielsen's business, and did not disclose them to the party until after the 2023 election.
Swarbrick said the party is considering the Tana's future but would not say if waka-jumping legislation would be invoked.
The Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill passed in September 2018. Despite voting for it, the Greens have long made their opposition to the legislation clear.
The controversial legislation, more commonly referred to as the "waka-jumping" law, is designed to prevent MPs from ditching their party during a parliamentary term. It automatically vacates an MP's seat if they deliver a signed, written notice to the Speaker resigning from the party they were elected for. The reasoning is this maintains the proportionality of representation in Parliament.
"Our caucus has come to the unanimous position that Darleen Tana is not fit to be a member of Parliament," Swarbrick said today.
"It's not a personal thing," she said, citing the executive summary of their investigation into her business affairs.
However, with Tana determined to stay in Parliament, and the Greens' proportionality now affected, Swarbrick said the party would formally explore other avenues at the AGM.
Swarbrick said she hopes to make the Greens the major party on the left and was looking to South Auckland to be a big part of that push.
The Greens need to "win trust," she said.
"The Greens aren't here just to get into power. We are here to redistribute power. That's the difference between real representation and mere tokenism."
Since becoming co-leader in March this year, Swarbrick has spoken of her belief the Greens can become the leading party on the left, and that the see-sawing of "legacy parties" had disenfranchised voters.
She re-iterated those points at the AGM, telling members that while she believed many members aligned themselves with green values, it was up to members to have the conversations to turn that into votes.
"For me, that's not just about more seats in Parliament. It's actually not even just about holding the government benches. It's about a country of citizens equipped with the understanding and the time and the resources to actively participate in our democracy. To hold those who make decisions on their behalf accountable. Even and especially if that's us."
Swarbrick spoke of past mass-movements such as the women winning the right to vote, the revitalisation of te reo Māori and the introduction of MMP.
She told members that Green values, too, could be an unstoppable movement.
"If that's what we in the Greens want to be, we've got to be brave enough to look at ourselves in the mirror and consider whether we want to evolve as a party."
She acknowledged many members of the public had become jaded with politics, and the Greens' opponents were relying on people being too tired to engage.
"Trust is broken when someone doesn't come through with what they've promised. You don't have to be a psychologist to understand this is why many communities across our country long ago gave up their trust in politicians," she said.
"If we believe we're different from the other guys, we can't just say it. We've got to prove it. Again, and again, and again."
She believed the Greens needed to go through some growing pains and reflect on what it used to be and what it wants to be.
