The Tana report

The Greens have released the executive summary of the Darlene Tana report (and good on them for doing so). Some extracts:

• The owner of the business did not provide a coherent or consistent verbal account and his evidence both oral and documentary tended to obfuscate rather than elucidate; (DPF: He lied)
• The respondent’s evidence shifted over the investigation with different explanations as to why that was so, requiring significant cross referencing to earlier accounts and documentation to come to findings (DPF: She lied)
• I found Chuck to be a credible witness who was upfront in response and provided relevant corroborating evidence to support his claims and was consistent between interviews. In contrast I did not find Christian or Darleen to be as credible. Christian set out responses to me that were plainly wrong and not corroborated by evidence. Throughout our interview he also changed or adjusted his answers and so lacked consistency of account, meaning I found him unreliable. Darleen’s credibility was significantly compromised too, because she initially told me she had nothing to do with Green Wheels Blenheim Limited and it was purely Christian’s business and quite separate from E Cycles. When I asked her if she had been a director she responded, no. However, eventually when I noted the Companies Office data, she conceded she had been a director
• I found Nick to be focused and credible in his answers. He supported his account with key documents and when he didn’t know something was clear about that.
• Christian presented evidence to me about Nick, that was shown to be incorrect, and appeared to be done to try and damage Nick’s credibility. When talking about Darleen’s involvement in the business he was inconsistent about the extent of her involvement over different periods, and accused the investigator of tampering with his transcript, which was incorrect.
• I find Darleen initially downplayed her ongoing involvement with E Cycles and Employee A’s employment over the latter half of 2020, until presented with the WhatsApp messages.
• I find it more likely than not Darleen was aware that there were potential breaches of employment standards with Employee A’s visa not fitting his circumstances when working at E Cycles in the first months of his return.
• Darleen approached Employee A at his new place of work and told him to stop saying negative things about E Cycles. Employee A reported the incident to the Police and a police report dated 23 March 2023 was provided to me. Employee A claimed Darleen was threatening and said she would take defamation proceedings.

Tana should resign.

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