Late on Thursday night, Green Party delegates held a vote to decide whether to eject Darleen Tana from Parliament under “waka jumping” legislation, with co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick confirming ex-Greens MP Metiria Turei took part in the hui.
The Green Party has always previously opposed the law.
At the meeting, Turei spoke and explained the background of past party statements and highlighted the need to make a principled decision informed by the available evidence, Swarbrick said.
“I didn‘t know that Metiria would be one of those to speak. That was huge for her obviously to offer those reflections on our past and where we’d come from but also where we are today,” Swarbrick told media Thursday night.
The unanimous vote by 185 Green Party delegates was to invoke the “waka jumping” legislation on Tana.
“We really do value the input of those who come before us in the Green party.
“When I first took the mantle of our co-leader alongside Marama Davidson I reflected a lot on our whakapapa but we also ... really value the fact that when confronted with new evidence and nuisance, we are willing to inspect things and inspect ourselves and potentially evolve.
“I think that is the value of having the reflections of the likes of Kevin Hague and Metiria,” Swarbrick said.
Turei used to be one of the party’s co-leaders between 2009 and 2017. She resigned during the 2017 elections after coming under pressure after admitting she had lied in the 1990s to prevent her solo parent’s benefit from being cut. She also confessed to committing voter fraud.
“There have been lots of allegations so far, there will be more, there’s no way that any family can withstand that scrutiny and they don’t deserve it. There’s that reason, and the other reason is I am 100 percent committed to the project of changing the government and having the Greens come into government and I think that, if I continue on as co-leader, I hinder that. I don’t want to because I’ve spent 15 years trying to make that happen,” Turei had told RNZ.
Earlier this year, Ex-Green Party co-leader, James Shaw, told RNZ the point of Turei sharing her past was not to “get it off her chest”.
“She was trying to demonstrate that there are people whose situations are so dire they feel like they have no choice but to do that, and that she had been in that situation herself.
“And you’ve got to remember in the week or so after that our polling went up four or five points - at one point I think we were on 16 or 17 percent - so people responded to that.”
Then came a period where “she was essentially hounded and all the rationale for making that speech got buried under this kind of attack,” Shaw told RNZ.