The Green Party will consider this weekend whether to try to force former Green MP Darleen Tana out of Parliament after Tana rejected co-leader Chloe Swarbrick’s request to resign and confirmed she would stay in Parliament as an independent MP.
Tana returned to Parliament on Tuesday and was declared an independent MP by Speaker Gerry Brownlee, later telling media she intended to stay on.
“I’m here now and doing the mahi … as long as this place allows me.”
I have fought the good fight brothers and sisters.
I have battled that class and solidarity is the power of the Left.
I have argued the true demarcation of power in a Democratic Capitalist State is the 1% richest + their 9% enablers vs the 90% rest of us, and that once you understand power in those terms there is no election we can’t win!
I’ve argued that middle class woke identity politics alienates voters from the Left and pushes them into the arms of the Right.
In NZ the Left fall in love with our leaders, the Right fall in line to them, so passion is understandable, but equally, the Left look for traitors, the Right look for recruits.
I have fought these middle class identity acolytes and their shallow woke Wellington dogma, but even I concede my class argument is being slowly strangled off in favour of identity politics as a new wave of youth join the ranks; youth who do it for the hashtag; do it for the ‘gram; do it for the likes and retweets and in that world Identity Politics is Yas Queen.
The holy trinity of woke dogma is:
In the name of the non binary mother: All white people are irredeemable cross burning racists.
In the name of the non binary daughter: B-E-L-I-E-V-E ALL WOMEN that ALL MEN are rapists.
In the name of the monthly red ghost: Anyone supporting free speech is a uniform wearing Nazi who hates the Trans community.
REMEMBER: There is no wriggle room here, if ANYONE dared make a joke about middle class woke dogma, they themselves are evil and must be immediately cancelled by the Wellington Woke.
This is where we are as a movement on the Left and the Right can not believe their luck at all the culture war ammunition we have handed them to trap us in culture war fights that we can never win.
No where is the power of identity politics more apparent than in Darleen Tana’s extraordinary refusal to leave and instead stay on in Parliament.
Darleen’s argument is that despite quitting the Greens and despite being a list candidate, she is a Māori woman who understands Māori science and as such, has a right to remain in Parliament – DESPITE quitting and DESPITE being a Party List MP.
Darleen believes her identity matters more than her actual political affiliation.
Look – if Darleen was an electorate MP and her quitting was driven by a conscious objection to Green Party policy, then she would have a right to stay, but that’s not what’s happened here at all!
There were serious allegations about her husband exploiting migrant labour, allegations that once investigated showed a far higher level of awareness of the issue on Darleen’s part than she was upfront about.
If she gave a damn about the Green Party kaupapa, she would have fallen on her sword once the allegations become public, but her Millennial level selfishness and self justification that her identity trumps all political obligations is astounding evidence of just how powerful Identity Politics has now become on the Left.
Chloe has no option other than immediately invoke the Waka jumping bill to get rid of her because every day Darleen stays in Parliament is just another reminder of how weak the Greens are.
Weakness in politics is death.
The trouble for Chloe is that the next candidate off the Party list is even woker…
…and the one after him pole danced to raise funds for the last election…
…the ‘lived experience’ groups inside the Greens have been given enormous selection of candidate powers and they have propelled these Identity Politics candidates up the list, the Greens need a good hard long look at themselves and the candidates they are promoting simply because of their diversity.
Candidate selection is a battle for another day, but right now if Chloe doesn’t invoke the Waka jumping, she will be seen as weak.
The bitter shallowness of Identity Politics has replaced the power of class solidarity and we will see the ultimate showdown of this in the American election where poor white people have become as easily triggered as middle class woke activists and now see themselves as the victim, and when white poor people start seeing themselves in the same victimhood language as the woke, we are in an enormous amount of danger.
Defining ourselves through a constant prism of marginalization helps the Right, not the Left!
Unfortunately this is rational, logical and objective thinking, and as we all know from the woke, rational, logical and objective thinking is a heteronormative white cis male privilege and thus worthless.
Meanwhile, the earth is melting…
Earth saw hottest day in recorded history over weekend – climate agency
On Sunday, the Earth sizzled to the hottest day ever measured by humans, yet another heat record shattered in the past couple of years, according to the European climate service Copernicus.
…we are so fucked as a movement.
Or they invoke it but proportionality isn’t changed because Tana promises to vote Green.
She can’t really claim some sort of superior Maori monopoly on anything when there are a number of Maori politicians from a fairly broad spectrum in Parliament, and when there is no singular Maori view any more than there is a Pakeha view. Kelvin Vanilla Davis tried this and was rightly criticised for doing so. That particular argument doesn’t really wash, but the proportionality one might, except that she may then have to compromise herself committing to voting Green when an issue is at odds with her alleged superior knowledge or supposed principles.
Presumably she’s in there to represent all New Zealanders, not to promulgate Maori science, and if the latter is why Marama approached her to be a politician, the Greens should have been upfront about this in the first place.
“I’m here now and doing the mahi…”
Really Darleen? What mahi? How deluded is that?
Actually on the outset Tana looked good, and she is clearly a political animal. Hoho. Its a shame she is a corrupt one, who would have thought after all it’s not something you would assume. Lucky the Waka jumping bill is there, as she was on the list, the Greens have to eat humble pie, use it and define the use of using it in their rules. Because she can’t be permitted to stay and do the ‘Mahi’. Wow. The audacity!
Ms Tana is a classic political opportunist and should be booted–she is pretty obviously in Parliament for the salary and benefits–no more no less. She ran for Whangārei Council several years back and had a different surname name again, I talked to her and she was dodgy as.
Any political party can get caught out with selections as the Natzos, NZ Labour, NZ First, ACT, and now the Greens have shown. Letting a cynical bludger like Darleen stay on out of “principle” should not be a consideration.
My young daughters (who are pretty woke) have a good lol at the young Americans who are tiktokking “Ma pronouns are U S and A”. Lefties create dumb shit and it will get used against them. Tana’s a ‘they’ = she’s tryna get higher on the woke hierarchy of oppression…what next a wheelchair? and cane?
It could be said that Darleen Tana has exploited weaknesses in the system at two points. First by gaining candidate status and a high place on the list when she had no real record on which she could be judged. Second, by insisting, correctly for the moment, that once in Parliament that she has a right to stay there. The Electoral Integrity Amendment Act is not a fix to either of these failings in the system. Democracy would be, if the colonialist regime was to allow a genuine democracy. To enter a representative assembly Tana, and every other representative, would need to have her own personal backing, and to stay there she would need to retain that backing. Everyone could know what support Tana had, and could see when she lost it. To that end we would need a continuous open ballot and elector defined constituencies. But the political establishment would rather engage in these debilitating and distracting political feuds, personality conflicts and witch-hunts within its own ranks than give the people democratic control over those who are supposed to be their representatives. If the consequences were not so serious it would be a joke. The Green Party is as culpable as all the rest, because the last thing it seems to want is to give power back to the people.
People like myself have also pointed out the rise of this exact Maori jump onto the woke train and been shouted down and told to shut up. There are very few who even think if it and less that would try it, but with Tana being loud and proud about it be ready for more “I’m Maori so my argument is more important” people jumping the shark in arguments.
This is much on the same line that has had a student of mine demanding I pronounce her name correctly (I did because I try to get everyone’s name correct out of basic respect) but also stating that she didn’t have to say my name correctly because she was Maori and it was not important to worry about small pakeha concerns.
Months with a wildly diverse group from around the world and she changed and opened up. Proud of her culture and determined to share it, but also realizing there were plenty other cultures and they didn’t have to be adversaries. Unfortunately a lot of the small group of people who support Tana and believe in the idea she claimed are never going to leave their little worlds and be exposed to reality. This problem will grow unless the Greens start leading the way in stomping out petty ridiculousness and getting things back on track.
There has been a lot of anonymous comment here variously suggesting that Darleen Tana is the problem, women are the problem, Maori are the problem and the Green Party is the problem, all of which misses the mark. The political system is the problem. And it can be easily fixed. Except that some people would rather go on blaming women and Maori for the defects of a political system which is intended to enable corruption and which consequently and inevitably will be corrupted.
It is none of these that is the problem. This problem is the outside problem of a “my wokeness is bigger than your wokeness” attitude rearing it’s head in parliament. This is a full on leftist radical “more than you” bragging contest not being pointed out for the childish game it is and put in perspective properly so real issues can be properly addressed.
This problem is a creeping undercurrent in some of our society that is a smaller but very real extremist idea in the vein of the far right. And just as damaging to politics and the future in the long term if not addressed properly.
The problem for you may be “leftist radicals”, Andrew2, but the problem we were discussing was what to do about elected representatives who are either personally discredited or betray the platform on which they were elected. This problem has affected all political parties, from the right, left and centre in recent years. The system as it stands has no effective and fair way of dealing with the problem. However there is an obvious solution: continuous election and the open ballot.
“The political system is the problem. And it can be easily fixed”
Well, not that easily. For better or worse we adopted MMP. Yes, it addresses the deeply flawed FPP system but what MMP encourages are opportunists off the list, sometimes way down the list, and that’s where the problems lies. They bring with them their own agendas, and I’d hazard a guess a good many voters are oblivious to this when they tick the Party vote. Not that self-serving opportunists are unheard of in politics, but smaller Parties in particular, desperate for charismatic running candidates, will for the most part turn a blind eye. At least with FPP all running candidates were endorsed by the electorate, what you saw is what you got. Still partly true but who knows who you’ll get off the list – other than the list of names.
The defects of FPP were readily apparent. The defects of MMP are now becoming evident. A better alternative to both FPP and MMP would be based on variable constituencies, continuous election and the open ballot.
“where poor white people have become as easily triggered as middle class woke activists and now see themselves as the victim”
But “poor” white people are real economic victims while middle class people with enough food on the table and time on their hands to contemplate pronouns and choose sterility drugs and self-mutilition as a way forward haven’t yet figured out they are victims of the ‘woke mind virus’. We are all victims now.
Just like the state abuse victims there will be a generation of Trans victims in need of compensation – due to policies promoted by a formerly environmentalist party. Tree hugging was victimless.
I find this whole thing just plain laughable. These silly people in the Green party really are egotistical narcissistic nuts. Their entitlement both of those in Parliament and those sitting in the wings is profound. Obviously they are reasonably intelligent enough to get Cornies packet qualifications but they seem to have been behind the door when common sense was given out.
Surely we can expect better from the people who are put in Parliament to represent us? But the horrible fact remains – people still vote for these morons! It doesn’t say much for us as a society. Combine that with the horrific abuse statistics and we truly are nation of neanderthals.
Comments are closed.