��һ�ǿ�����

After more than 100 days, the investigation into Green MP Darleen Tana has concluded. The��Green Party is hosting a press conference to respond to its findings.

The press conference will be livestreamed by the��������������at the top of this file at 1pm.

Tana was suspended from caucus in March after allegations she is linked to��migrant��exploitation at her husband Christian Hoff-Nielsen’s bicycle company. Hoff-Nielsen denied all the exploitation allegations at the time and told the������������:��“This is not a news story, there is no news.”

Tana has been suspended for 116 days on full pay - more than half of her entire Parliamentary career.

In that time, MPs were given a sizeable, backdated pay rise taking her base salary to $168,600.

This means she will have earned over $40,000 during the more than three months of her suspension.

The Greens hired barrister Rachel Burt to look into the allegations. .

The report took far longer than expected.

For some time, the Green Party has been saying that the investigation has been close to wrapping up.

On April 9, Green co-leader Marama Davidson told��The Hui��the party was “coming towards the end of that independent investigation”.

In May, Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick suggested in an interview with����һ�ǿ�����talk ZB��the issue was close to being resolved.

She wouldn’t give a specific date on when Burt would report back but said the matter had “progressed quite substantially”.

Asked why the investigation hadn’t yet concluded, Swarbrick noted how its terms of reference had been expanded following fresh allegations becoming public through media reporting.

That month, the��Herald�������ǰ��ٱ����that an investigation into the allegations��cost $43,000, paid for out of the publicly-funded bulk allowance��the Greens receive through Parliament, as do all other parties in Parliament.

Things went from bad to worse in May when Tana was referred to the police due to��an alleged issue with a paid article in��Verve Magazine. That issue relates to the alleged failure to include a promoter statement in an election advertisement published last May.

Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the��Herald��since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.

- NZ Herald