Jack Tame put the question to the two Chrises in Tuesday's TVNZ leaders' debate. Neither said yes. That night Tamatha took to TikTok: "The answer is yes. Here's why."
"Anybody who is a billionaire did not become billionaires because they earned it or because they deserve it." Their wealth "is parasitic. That means it grows and it infects and it eats everything in its path."
Then came the dare. New Zealand has 26 billionaires. "If anyone can name of any of those 26 people an ethical billionaire, then I'll quit politics."
That's a generous offer. It's not every day an MP stakes her career on a pub quiz.
On RNZ's Midday Report on Thursday, Guyon Espiner had a go. He named James Cameron.
The Avatar man is a New Zealand citizen now. He's on this year's NBR Rich List at $1.6 billion. So he's one of her 26. And, delightfully, he and his wife gave the Green Party $50,000 in 2023.
So, Guyon asked, is he immoral?
Tamatha suddenly lost interest in names. "If I've said that a class of people are, and I've given you the reasons that they are, I'm not gonna go by individually."
There you have it. Billionaires are immoral as a class. Just not the one who chipped into the Greens' war chest.
This from the party whose MP Golriz Ghahraman had pushed a member's bill to cap political donations at $35,000 a year. The bill failed. Cameron's cheque was not returned.
Guyon tried Bill Gates. Built a computing empire, now giving away a fortune to wipe out malaria and polio. Surely that's moral?
No. Gates, she said, is "popping up in the Epstein files".
So the test isn't really about the money. It's the company you keep.
Fair enough. Let's look at the company Tamatha keeps.
In 2017 Green co-leader Metiria Turei told her party's AGM she had lied to Work and Income in the 1990s. She hadn't disclosed the flatmates living with her while on the DPB, to keep her benefit from being cut. She wanted the Greens "defined by our truths". Then she admitted enrolling at an address she didn't live at to vote for a friend. She resigned as co-leader.
Golriz Ghahraman, the human rights lawyer, pleaded guilty to four counts of shoplifting. The court documents list a $695 Zambesi shirt, a $1900 Acne Studios coat, a $160 wallet and a $389 cardigan. Back at the same Ponsonby boutique two days later, she left with a $4500 Row dress, a $650 Issey Miyake bag and more in her tote. Staff stopped her in the car park. An associate brought most of it back later that day. The judge refused her a discharge without conviction. The High Court agreed.
Marx wanted workers to seize the means of production. Golriz went for the means of accessorising.
To be fair, the judge accepted her remorse and her history of trauma, and she paid full reparation. But if billionaire wealth "eats everything in its path", Golriz at least had the decency to try things on first.
Darleen Tana was the Greens' small business spokeswoman. A barrister's investigation found it "more likely than not" she knew of allegations of unpaid wages and visa breaches at her husband's e-bike business, and didn't tell her party. Tana rejects the findings. The Greens then threw her out of Parliament using the waka-jumping law they had long opposed. Principles are like billionaires. Immoral, until they're useful.
Elizabeth Kerekere quit the party in 2023 amid a bullying investigation, after a group text of hers appeared to call Chlöe Swarbrick a crybaby. "What a crybaby," it said. She said it wasn't aimed at Swarbrick. Co-leader James Shaw said: "We don't find it credible."
Julie Anne Genter crossed the chamber and yelled "read the report" in Matt Doocey's face. Parliament's Privileges Committee found her in contempt and recommended she be censured. She apologised and took de-escalation training. That's a sentence I never expected to type about a Member of Parliament.
Benjamin Doyle, who replaced Tana, turned out to have run an Instagram account called BibleBeltBussy. Doyle said "bussy" was an in-joke nickname with no sexual meaning, admitted being "politically naive" for not deleting it, received a torrent of threats that no one should get, and left Parliament last year.
Which brings us back to Tamatha.
In a general debate speech in August she told the House that National's Grant McCallum "bought a house in Wellington, so they can pay themselves the accommodation allowance while taxpayers pay their mortgage off". Her clip got over a million views on TikTok.
It wasn't true. McCallum hadn't bought in Wellington. He'd bought a place in Paihia so he had somewhere to stay in the far north of his electorate, saving the taxpayer motel bills, and he doesn't rent it out. He corrected the record and asked for an apology.
He's still waiting. Co-leader Marama Davidson explained that "in the heat of the moment in the chamber, things are often said off the cuff".
So there's the Green moral code. A billionaire is immoral because he got rich. A Green is moral because she means well.
Here's the thing Tamatha's TikTok leaves out. In a market, nobody gets a cent unless someone else hands it over willingly. Nobody was forced to watch Avatar. Nobody was forced to buy a Zuru toy or launch a satellite on a Rocket Lab rocket. Billionaires got rich by making things millions of people wanted more than their money.
The only outfit in this country that takes your money without asking is the one Tamatha works for. If we're hunting for parasites, I'd start there.
She told RNZ the Greens' wealth tax means even she will pay more. "I don't own anything at all, and I'm willing to pay more." That's the Green economic plan in a sentence. A tax on wealth, cheerfully volunteered for by those without any. And what they do have, forced out of others.
Tamatha promised to quit politics if anyone could name an ethical billionaire. Guyon offered her one. The one who'd given her party fifty grand. She wouldn't call him immoral.
She's still in politics. But by all means let her tell us who is and who isn't moral.
That's a generous offer. It's not every day an MP stakes her career on a pub quiz.
On RNZ's Midday Report on Thursday, Guyon Espiner had a go. He named James Cameron.
The Avatar man is a New Zealand citizen now. He's on this year's NBR Rich List at $1.6 billion. So he's one of her 26. And, delightfully, he and his wife gave the Green Party $50,000 in 2023.
So, Guyon asked, is he immoral?
Tamatha suddenly lost interest in names. "If I've said that a class of people are, and I've given you the reasons that they are, I'm not gonna go by individually."
There you have it. Billionaires are immoral as a class. Just not the one who chipped into the Greens' war chest.
This from the party whose MP Golriz Ghahraman had pushed a member's bill to cap political donations at $35,000 a year. The bill failed. Cameron's cheque was not returned.
Guyon tried Bill Gates. Built a computing empire, now giving away a fortune to wipe out malaria and polio. Surely that's moral?
No. Gates, she said, is "popping up in the Epstein files".
So the test isn't really about the money. It's the company you keep.
Fair enough. Let's look at the company Tamatha keeps.
In 2017 Green co-leader Metiria Turei told her party's AGM she had lied to Work and Income in the 1990s. She hadn't disclosed the flatmates living with her while on the DPB, to keep her benefit from being cut. She wanted the Greens "defined by our truths". Then she admitted enrolling at an address she didn't live at to vote for a friend. She resigned as co-leader.
Golriz Ghahraman, the human rights lawyer, pleaded guilty to four counts of shoplifting. The court documents list a $695 Zambesi shirt, a $1900 Acne Studios coat, a $160 wallet and a $389 cardigan. Back at the same Ponsonby boutique two days later, she left with a $4500 Row dress, a $650 Issey Miyake bag and more in her tote. Staff stopped her in the car park. An associate brought most of it back later that day. The judge refused her a discharge without conviction. The High Court agreed.
Marx wanted workers to seize the means of production. Golriz went for the means of accessorising.
To be fair, the judge accepted her remorse and her history of trauma, and she paid full reparation. But if billionaire wealth "eats everything in its path", Golriz at least had the decency to try things on first.
Darleen Tana was the Greens' small business spokeswoman. A barrister's investigation found it "more likely than not" she knew of allegations of unpaid wages and visa breaches at her husband's e-bike business, and didn't tell her party. Tana rejects the findings. The Greens then threw her out of Parliament using the waka-jumping law they had long opposed. Principles are like billionaires. Immoral, until they're useful.
Elizabeth Kerekere quit the party in 2023 amid a bullying investigation, after a group text of hers appeared to call Chlöe Swarbrick a crybaby. "What a crybaby," it said. She said it wasn't aimed at Swarbrick. Co-leader James Shaw said: "We don't find it credible."
Julie Anne Genter crossed the chamber and yelled "read the report" in Matt Doocey's face. Parliament's Privileges Committee found her in contempt and recommended she be censured. She apologised and took de-escalation training. That's a sentence I never expected to type about a Member of Parliament.
Benjamin Doyle, who replaced Tana, turned out to have run an Instagram account called BibleBeltBussy. Doyle said "bussy" was an in-joke nickname with no sexual meaning, admitted being "politically naive" for not deleting it, received a torrent of threats that no one should get, and left Parliament last year.
Which brings us back to Tamatha.
In a general debate speech in August she told the House that National's Grant McCallum "bought a house in Wellington, so they can pay themselves the accommodation allowance while taxpayers pay their mortgage off". Her clip got over a million views on TikTok.
It wasn't true. McCallum hadn't bought in Wellington. He'd bought a place in Paihia so he had somewhere to stay in the far north of his electorate, saving the taxpayer motel bills, and he doesn't rent it out. He corrected the record and asked for an apology.
He's still waiting. Co-leader Marama Davidson explained that "in the heat of the moment in the chamber, things are often said off the cuff".
So there's the Green moral code. A billionaire is immoral because he got rich. A Green is moral because she means well.
Here's the thing Tamatha's TikTok leaves out. In a market, nobody gets a cent unless someone else hands it over willingly. Nobody was forced to watch Avatar. Nobody was forced to buy a Zuru toy or launch a satellite on a Rocket Lab rocket. Billionaires got rich by making things millions of people wanted more than their money.
The only outfit in this country that takes your money without asking is the one Tamatha works for. If we're hunting for parasites, I'd start there.
She told RNZ the Greens' wealth tax means even she will pay more. "I don't own anything at all, and I'm willing to pay more." That's the Green economic plan in a sentence. A tax on wealth, cheerfully volunteered for by those without any. And what they do have, forced out of others.
Tamatha promised to quit politics if anyone could name an ethical billionaire. Guyon offered her one. The one who'd given her party fifty grand. She wouldn't call him immoral.
She's still in politics. But by all means let her tell us who is and who isn't moral.
Rodney Hide is former ACT Party leader, and Minister in the National-ACT Government from 2008 to 2011. This article was first published HERE
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