Cam Slater: Greens’ Issues Are All Their Own Making

Bryce Edwards has written a very good piece at The Democracy Project outlining the issues The Greens face in the Darleen Tana saga and it is his view that they are all of the Greens’ own making.

Yesterday, the Green Party did its best to paint a picture in which it is the victims of Darleen Tana. Naturally, there will be sympathy for the plight of a party embarrassed by an aberrant MP who appears to have misbehaved and looks to continue as a thorn in the Greens’ side in Parliament.

Yet this is a scandal of the Green Party’s own making. From the recruitment of Darleen Tana to the dilemma of invoking the waka jumping rules, the Greens have made their bed and now need to sleep in it. Throughout the whole saga, the Greens have caused a number of integrity problems and now must be held accountable for fixing them.

Bryce Edwards

He then goes on to outline in detail all of the Green Party failings:

• The Green Party faces backlash over mishandling Darleen Tana’s scandal.
• Party leadership failed to address integrity issues promptly.
• Initial attempts to resolve allegations, secretly, backfired publicly.
• Lack of transparency in handling the investigation.
• Taxpayer money used for private investigation, raising accountability issues.
• Calls for full release of the report amid accusations of cover-up.
• Recruitment practices under scrutiny after multiple scandals.
• Debate over invoking waka-jumping law to remove Tana from Parliament.

Never mind apologising to the exploited migrant workers, as well.

Bryce Edwards is dead right: all of the issues he raises point to systemic issues inside the Green Party, from the way they select their candidates, to candidate vetting, to internal human resourcing issues, to capable and competent leadership.

None of this would have happened under Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Donald. But the rot set in during Meteria Turei and Russel Norman’s days, exacerbated by a lack of leadership under James Shaw amongst others.

The party is now lead by two sloganeering and screeching harridans with no actual leadership ability.

Their MPs think they are all that and a bag of chips, and those chips are flat and chicken flavoured.

Sadly, they will box on, because most of their electorate is in the leafy suburbs, particularly women who like green as a colour and don’t realise they are voting in a bunch of communists masquerading as environmentalists, with an emphasis on the mental part.

But Darleen Tana appears to be digging in and so there is much merriment to be had watching that process come to its natural conclusion.

Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the BFD - where this article was sourced.