Ex-Green MP Darleen Tana: ‘Easiest thing’ might be to leave Parliament

Disgraced former Green MP Darleen Tana is continuing to defend herself after a damning report found she “likely” knew about allegations of worker exploitation at her husband’s business, but did not inform the Green Party, breaching its candidate code of conduct.

Last week, Tana told the Herald she believed sections of the report were leaked to “pressure” her while she decided how to respond to the Green Party’s call to resign from Parliament altogether after being kicked out of the party.

Tana didn’t speculate on her future last week but has today told 1News “the easiest thing may well be to step away” amid the public scrutiny and political pressure.

However, she indicated her mind wasn’t yet made up, saying she was taking advice from supporters including iwi.

“Many more people have reached out to me than not to actually continue to do that mahi,” she told 1News.

Asked what mandate she had to remain as an independent MP, Tana said she took her view from a “personal, te ao Māori perspective”.

“It’s not so much about mandate, it’s about the kaupapa,” she said.

She maintained she didn’t exploit migrants.

Tana quit the party last weekend before she was pushed. She spent more than half of her parliamentary career on suspension, earning about $50,000 while not attending Parliament. Tana’s misfortune has brought about an unlikely reunion of the parties that formed the Sixth Labour Government with the leaders of the Greens, NZ First, and Labour all saying Tana should fall on her sword and go.

NZ First and Labour have even said the Greens should use the controversial waka jumping law to boot Tana out of Parliament altogether.

The Greens have said they will endeavour to publish the executive summary of that report after consultation with the relevant parties, which includes consultation with Tana herself. The Herald understands her stonewalling the party over the report is part of the hold-up in getting the report published.

A leaked portion of the report was obtained by Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive and RNZ. The report was critical of Tana and her husband Christian Hoff-Nielsen.

It said Tana and Hoff-Nielsen’s evidence was often “lengthy and often unclear”.

“The owner of the business did not provide a coherent or consistent verbal account and his evidence both oral and documentary tended to obfuscate rather than elucidate,” Wellington lawyer Rachel Burt wrote of Hoff-Nielsen.

“The respondent’s evidence shifted over the investigation with different explanations as to why that was so, requiring significant cross referencing to earlier accounts and documentation to come to findings,” Burt wrote of Tana, according to the document obtained by RNZ.

Green Party musterer Ricardo Menendez March told the Herald in a statement, “the party is still working in good faith through privacy considerations for release of the executive summary”.

“Today, we have once again written formally to Darleen asking for her response to Caucus’ unanimous request for her resignation,” he said.