The Greens are wailing about Darleen Tana giving them the middle finger as she takes up an independent seat in the Parliament. Yet the situation is entirely of their own making and the solution to their predicament is also entirely in their hands.
Embattled MP Darleen Tana has fronted media after returning to the House today, saying she will remain in Parliament “as long as this place allows me”.
She returned to the House today for the first time since resigning from the Green Party.
Asked when she would decide her future in Parliament, she said: “I’m here now and doing the mahi ... as long as this place allows me.”
Tana said she has not had any conversations with her former party since returning to Parliament.
Asked if she was involved in migrant exploitation, she said: “The report that came out was pretty clear, there was no migrant exploitation in that report, let alone that I was involved in it.
“What I can categorically say is we’ve spent so much money wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned money to find out that I am married to my husband for better or for worse.”
As she finished speaking to reporters, Tana said she needed to get back to the House because she was the “only person there and I don’t have anybody backing me up”.
She really has more front than Smith and Caughey’s and the hide of a hippo. But I am quietly admiring her for standing up to the mean girls of the Greens.
Which means that we have much hilarity and entertainment to come as she stares them down from the furthest reaches of Parliament’s back bench. The backs of their heads will be burning from her death stare.
As Te Pāti Māori MPs entered, they came and greeted her.
The Greens have called on Tana to quit Parliament – a call echoed today by Labour leader Chris Hipkins. So far, she has shown no signs of doing so.
The Greens have been reduced to begging her to quit because they really don’t want to have to invoke the waka jumping legislation that they have always opposed.
However, the longer Tana sits there the more they’ll have to consider chugging down an enormous vegan rat and do it, even though they’ll be exposed as the rank hypocrites they have always been.
But not to worry, they can hold up their shields of sanctimony as they do it and hope that no one notices their hypocrisy.
The Greens really are a clown show.
But, what’s the bet Tana will end up in Te Pāti Māori, and claim that the Greens are racists? I wouldn’t bet against that. I know who is advising her, and I know of their connections to Te Pāti Māori.
Watch it happen!
