Mike Hosking: Now we know just how dangerous Green MP Julie Anne Genter is

There is a pattern emerging here: one of surreptitious behaviour by Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter.

COMMENT: Julie Anne Genter needs to come clean, she owes us all an explanation.

Did she or did she not threaten to pull the plug on the deal with the Labour Party and in essence bring down the Government?

This goes back to her letter that she won't release and is currently being looked at by the Ombudsman - and this is not the first time she's been asked to come clean.

But the news this week, which to be frank is major, and yet again appears to have been largely ignored by far too many in the media (for reasons we can only once again assume goes directly to their inability to see beyond their own bias) is that Wellington Mayor Justin Lester told a bunch of councillors that the deal they had for the "Let's Get Wellington Moving" project was the best they could do without Genter and another green MP quitting and pulling the Government apart.

This is the same letter Genter said never existed, until it did. And then it was written by a MP (her) but not in her ministerial capacity, and therefore was not discoverable. Until it turned out that she wrote it on ministerial letterhead and had to reveal that in the House to a, not surprisingly, large amount of derision and laughter.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is also involved here because I quite specifically asked her whether she had seen and knew what was in it and whether it was major, and she said it wasn't. If it turns out the letter contains a threat to bring a government down, she's then misled us, don't you think?

Of course people are entitled to their views - and if Genter had done all this out in the open there wouldn't be quite the issue. At least she was being open, honest, and transparent, which is what they promised they would be.

But there is a pattern emerging here: one of surreptitious behaviour. Perhaps we could also use the word Machiavellian.

For this is the same woman who once again, in secret, set about looking at the chances of banning the motor car from New Zealand. You will note it wasn't her policy campaigned on at the election, and you will note she's never talked openly about it to canvas support or otherwise.

She squirrels around under the cover of darkness looking to plant the seeds of her particular economic madness, hopefully without us ever really finding out, until presumably it's too late.

Now Justin Lester, friend of the Greens and Labour, semi denies he said this in that meeting, or semi denies it came out as clearly as the three other councillors are painting it.

So I tell you what could clear all that up once and for all - and that is the release of that letter.

And why won't she release it? Because it looks like we have enough now to know, that what is in it is explosive, embarrassing - and goes a long, long way to warning the rest of us just how dangerous she really is.