GORDON LIGHTFOOT | Politics
BRINGING HOME THE BACON
With Darleen Tana’s husband’s bike shop going out of business, the former Green MP is glad she has something safe and reliable to fall back on.
Tana was effectively kicked out of the Greens for migrant exploitation, after a report found that she and her husband were employing people on working visas and not paying them fairly.
Today however she’s back in parliament, delivering a full day’s work for the taxpayer by sitting at the back of parliament and not saying a word to anyone. At $168k per year, it’s a better profit model than trying to rent bikes, especially when everyone knows you’re not paying your staff.
Tana sat in an area of the debating chamber known as “Siberia”, which is where MPs that have been exiled from their parties are forced to sit. It has been visited by big names such as Jami-Lee Ross and Gaurav Sharma in the past, who were both unceremoniously dumped.
Santiago Latour Palma, the Argentine migrant worker that Darleen exploited, is meanwhile still keen to get that money he’s owed in unpaid wages and holiday pay.
“When you can Darleen, I know you’ve been so busy the last four months with all that work you’ve been doing in parliament,” he said in a thick South American accent.
Palma says that the drama that’s been playing out between Tana and the Greens has been fascinating, however it doesn’t actually help him much with the bills he’s got to pay.
“Wow, did you resign from the Greens Darleen? And you’re going to be independent now? That’s nice, I’m actually really behind on my rent.”
More to come.
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