Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere says the party’s door is open to former Green MP Darlene Tana – and another former Green, Elizabeth Kerekere.
The High Court on Friday cleared the way for the Green Party to invoke the party-hopping legislation and ask the Speaker to remove Ms Tana from parliament.
She’s now sitting as an independent.
Mr Tamihere says the report on what Mrs Tana knew about allegations of migrant exploitation in her husband’s e-bike business did not come up to the evidentiary standards required for a police prosecution, and it’s a sad undoing of an able person.
He says Te Pāti Māori would have handled things differently by bringing in kaumātua.
“What people are waking up to is the Labour Party and the Green Party are not kaupapa-Maori driven. If they were kaupapa-Maori driven we have got ways of dealing hohou te rongo. All off our tikanga is on play that can sort things out without us having to go down that track,” Mr Tamihere says.
He says other parties are about looking after the interests of their leaders, not about doing what’s right.
