What if replacement’s worse?

The Greens have ensured that the Darleen Tana saga will drag on for several more weeks:

The Green Party will decide whether to eject former Green, now independent MP Darleen Tana from Parliament at a Special General Meeting (SGM) on September 1.

At the party’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Christchurch this weekend, members decided to support a caucus proposal to hold a special meeting in a month’s time where party delegates could vote on whether to use the waka-jumping law to oust Tana from Parliament. . . 

The party voted for the waka jumping legislation but has always said it’s against it.

They could argue that Tana is a special case.

She is a list MP, not in parliament with the support of an electorate, but because the Green Party, from which she has resigned, gifted her a high enough list place to gain a seat.

She has left the party not on a point of principle over policy, but because an independent inquiry links her to her husband’s business and accusations of migrant exploitation.

That is so opposed to and incompatible with the party’s purported values to give it enough reason to swallow the dead rat of hypocrisy and use the waka jumping legislation.

It might but not until September when members might, or might not vote to do so. Even if they do, it will take more time to write to the speaker, him to deliberate and decide whether or not Tana’s resignation form the Greens has upset parliament’s proportionality.

In the meantime taxpayers are funding her salary and getting no apparent value for it.

However, if the legislation is invoked and Tana is forced out of parliament, what if her replacement is worse, or no better, in providing value for the taxpayer funded salary?

There’s nothing any of us can do about that.