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Speaker 1: Good afternoon, Darlene Tanna lives to see another day. After

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Speaker 1: she launched those legal proceedings, the Green Party decided to

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Speaker 1: cancel the special meeting they had planned for this weekend

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Speaker 1: where they were going to plot kicking her out of Parliament.

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Speaker 1: There is now a new court hearing in two weeks time.

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Speaker 1: University of Otago law professor Andrew Gettis has with me.

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Speaker 1: Now hey, Andrew, Yeah, hi Eva. So it turns out

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Speaker 1: that what she's actually fighting is the investigation into her

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Speaker 1: the process. Has she got a case here?

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Speaker 2: Well, that's all we see all the evidence, it's difficult

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Speaker 2: to know, but it's really hard to see. Essentially, what

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Speaker 2: she's arguing is that she didn't really resign from the party,

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Speaker 2: but she basically was pushed out and that the Greens

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Speaker 2: approach to her made it untenable for her to remain.

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Speaker 2: And because she's saying she was effectively constructively dismissed, forced out,

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Speaker 2: she hasn't done anything that would then allow the Greens

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Speaker 2: to trigger the party hopping war. So that's basically what

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Speaker 2: she's saying, that the investigation of the way the Greens

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Speaker 2: treated her made her resign than her choosing to resign

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Speaker 2: and that's what she's going to have to try to

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Speaker 2: commit the court of.

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Speaker 1: Yes, this ultimately comes down to the walker jumping law

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Speaker 1: in the end. Will she have a case on that

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Speaker 1: saying that they can't use it because they actually kicked

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Speaker 1: her out?

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Speaker 2: Well, okay, so what the walker jumpy law requires is

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Speaker 2: that the proportionality of Parliament be disturbed, and that happened

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Speaker 2: because you know the Green's now won SMP. But it

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Speaker 2: has to be the result of the MP's actions. So

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Speaker 2: what she's going to argue is, look, this wasn't my fault,

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Speaker 2: wasn't my actions that caused this. It was the Green

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Speaker 2: Party did it to me. The big problem is she resigned.

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Speaker 2: You know, she's going to have to convince the court

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Speaker 2: that essentially her resignation wasn't a real resignation, it was

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Speaker 2: the Greens pushed her out.

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Speaker 1: Well, a constructive dismissial essentially.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. The problem is, of course constructive dismissile and employment

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Speaker 2: law is built around with all sorts of protections and

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Speaker 2: so on. Political parties are different, right, They're political organizations

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Speaker 2: where you meant to be robust and parties have a

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Speaker 2: right to get rid of you if you're not upholding

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Speaker 2: the party line and not reflecting well on the party.

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Speaker 2: So it's not exactly the same as constructive dismissal that

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Speaker 2: that sort of law doesn't apply. It's a much much

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Speaker 2: tougher test.

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Speaker 1: So Andrew, compared to how her case was looking this morning,

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Speaker 1: which was extremely weak, how's it looking now to you?

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Speaker 1: A little stronger?

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Speaker 2: No, extremely weak. Still, all that's happened. All that's happened

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Speaker 2: is that she's managed to get the Greens to agree

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Speaker 2: to put everything on hold for a couple of weeks.

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Speaker 2: The Greens agreed to do that. The court didn't order

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Speaker 2: them to do that. Well, well, it looks like they

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Speaker 2: only got notice of this case like yesterday, and so

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Speaker 2: they need time, I guess, to prepare. And so I

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Speaker 2: think rather than sort of fight a immediate case, immediate

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Speaker 2: court decision, now they've said, okay, let's let's take two

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Speaker 2: weeks and get this sorted properly while we've got all

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Speaker 2: our arguments in line.

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Speaker 1: Andrew, I really appreciate you talking us through it. Thank

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Speaker 1: you so much, mate. That's Andrew Gettus, University of Otago

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Speaker 1: law professor.

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