The Green Party faces the prospect of a court injunction ahead of a meeting to decide whether to use the waka-jumping law to oust now-independent MP, Darleen Tana from Parliament.
Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick fronted media this afternoon.
She said her office received notice seeking an interim injunction through judicial review about 5.25pm yesterday for the party’s special general meeting this weekend not to go ahead.
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Swarbrick says the party was focused on getting to the “appropriate outcome”.
The special meeting had not been cancelled as of this time, she said.
Lawyers representing Darleen Tana sent an email to the Greens saying they had lodged proceedings in the High Court, seeking judicial review of the party, Swarbrick and Marama Davidson, and the party’s governing council.
The hearing would be held at 10am tomorrow in the High Court at Auckland.
Tana has said they (Tana uses they/them pronouns) had no intention of resigning after a letter from Davidson and Swarbrick to Tana last month saying Tana’s decision to resign from the party but not from Parliament had distorted the proportionality of the House.
The letter began a statutory process that could see Davidson and Swarbrick try to use the waka-jumping law to boot Tana from Parliament altogether.
This would only happen if the co-leaders had the support of party members, who will decide whether they support using the law against Tana at Sunday’s special meeting.
In their response to that request earlier this month, Tana had argued they did not think the law “could reasonably be invoked” against them.
Tana also skewered the Greens for U-turning on their longstanding opposition to waka-jumping rules.
“I was gobsmacked to be held up as a “liar” and “not fit for purpose” by Green Party leadership. And heartbroken to be the subject of such a malicious campaign of mis- and disinformation,” they said.
Tana quoted former Green co-leader Rod Donald, who noted “the principle of democracy may come at a price”.
“This or any other piece of legislation cannot distinguish between the Jim Andertons and the Alamein Kopus of this world. Jim Anderton, as other speakers have already said, exercised his conscience. He claimed that his old party left him and that he remained true to its principles. Alamein Kopu had no good cause, but she is the price of democracy,” Tana quoted Donald as saying.
Potentially drawing a comparison between Kopu, who “had no good cause”, and themselves, Tana finished the letter by noting the amount of money the Greens would miss out on as a result of their defection: $564,187.
“[It] draws attention to the price of democracy that Rod Donald spoke about. He considered that although there might be a price, it was worth paying. Is the Green Party really prepared to compromise this principle at this price?,” Tana wrote.
Swarbrick responded to Tana’s letter on her way into the debating chamber, saying Tana “refuse[d] to take any accountability or address the actual issue”.
Swarbrick said the party’s historical opposition to waka-jumping rules related to concerns leaders would use the law to stifle independent MPs.
Tana cited a Supreme Court ruling from a case fought between Act’s Donna Awarere Huata and Richard Prebble from 2005, in which one of the justices, Peter Blanchard, noted the waka-jumping provision could not simply be triggered because an MP resigned from their party and became an independent.
“It is necessary also that there be a reasonably held view that, as [the statute puts it] ‘the member ... has acted in a way that has distorted, and is likely to continue to distort, proportionality. If it is not the actions of the member which have led to the declaration, it cannot, in my opinion, be said that the member has acted in a way that has distorted etc. A member who remains in Parliament after the Speaker has made a declaration does not by that fact alone cause the distortion,” he said.
Tana made several arguments for why their resignation did not distort the proportionality of Parliament, chiefly that Te Pāti Māori would now be casting proxy votes for Tana in alignment with how the Green Party votes, meaning the Greens would not lose out on support in the House.
Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.
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