Metiria Turei, Elizabeth Kerekere, Darleen Tana. All once Green MPs – all gone from Te Pāti Kākāri.
Now former National MP-turned Waatea News reporter Claudette Hauiti is asking how culturally safe is it to be a wahine Māori in the Green Party?
Hauiti’s questions follow Darleen Tana’s forced resignation from the Greens last weekend. Tana is the second wahine Māori to be forced out of Parliament by the Greens, following Dr Elizabeth Kerekere’s resignation last year. Turei left the party in 2017.
Hauiti – a National MP in 2013 – put questions to the Green Party about cultural safety practices or policies it employed when dealing with wāhine Māori members.
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick with colleague Teanau Tuiono. Photo / Mark Mitchell
She asked Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick why MP Julie Ann Genter – who is facing a disciplinary decision by the privileges committee after confronting National MP Matt Doocey in the debating chamber – has not also been investigated over bullying allegations revealed by the Herald, following a heated exchange with a Wellington florist.
She said allegations of inappropriate behaviour inside the House by Genter, the Rongotai MP, had been referred to a parliamentary privileges committee but the Greens “failed to launch an independent inquiry following reports alleging Genter abused a small business owner who disagreed with the party roading policy”.
“This second forced resignation [of Tana] raises questions of double standards in the Green Party,” Hauiti said.
“I asked about tikanga processes used by the inquiry during the Tana investigation.”
Swarbrick said the party did everything it could to engage with Tana in good faith.
“To be really clear, and to reiterate as the Pākehā co-leader, I don’t hold that [Māori] space so do not profess to speak on behalf of anyone other than myself,” Swarbrick told Hauiti.
Claudette Hauiti is a former National MP-turned Waatea News reporter. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Hauiti pressed further by asking “how safe is Te Pāti kākāriki [Greens] for wāhine Māori?”
“I am a Pākehā co-leader standing here without our Māori co-leader Marama Davidson. To that effect I want to make it abundantly clear that Marama was actively involved in all party and all caucus discussion.”
Hauiti then asked Teanau Tuiono, who chairs Te Mātāwaka, the Greens Māori and Pasifika caucus, if the party was racist and what kind of cultural kōrowai (cloak) the Greens had to deal with its Māori members.
“I wouldn’t go there,” Tuiono told Hauiti.
“So this is not about who Darleen is, this is about what she’s done.
“When you’re down at the marae, you look after the ringawera [kitchen workers].
“If you’re down at your workplace, you look after the workers, and we’ve got a longstanding tradition of standing up against migrant exploitation, and standing up for workers’ rights, and that’s what’s important here.”
Tana, the now-former Green MP, of Ngāpuhi descent, was suspended in mid-March after claims she was linked to migrant exploitation at her husband’s company.
Hauiti again pointed out that Turei, Kerekere and Tana were all Māori and Swarbrick took exception to linking the resignations of Turei, Kerekere and now Tana.
“All three of those instances are markedly radically different,” she said.
“But what we are talking about here is not who Darleen is but what Darleen has done,” Swarbrick said.
Former Green Party MP Elizabeth Kerekere. Photo / NZME
Hauiti told Swarbrick the Greens claim they are a Te Tiriti-centric partner yet “you don’t care about who they [MPs] are and you don’t care about their hapū, iwi and whakapapa?”
Both Swarbrick and Tuiono refuted that.
Tana is the second wahine Māori MP to leave the party in two years, after Kerekere left over allegations of bullying, including calling Swarbrick a “cry baby” in a Green Party group chat.
Following that, at least seven other past and present Green Party staff came forward with allegations of bullying and combative behaviour from Kerekere.
Joseph Los’e is an award winning journalist and joined NZME in 2022 as Kaupapa Māori Editor. Los’e was a chief reporter, news director at the Sunday News newspaper covering crime, justice and sport. He was also editor of the NZ Truth and prior to joining NZME worked for urban Māori organisation Whānau Waipareira.
