New Zealand Green party leader resigns after revealing she lied to claim benefits

The co-leader of the New Zealand Green party Metiria Turei has resigned citing “unbearable” pressure after she revealed that she had lied to claim more benefits as a single mother more than twenty years ago.

Last month Turei admitted to the New Zealand public that she had lied to a government social welfare agency as a 23-year-old single mother in order to “survive”.

She told Work and Income that she was living alone with her daughter, when in fact she had taken in flatmates to subsidise the cost of her rent.

The revelation was met with shock across the political spectrum, and in the weeks since Turei has faced intense personal and political pressure to resign from parliament, with her critics calling her a “criminal” and saying she is unfit for public office.

In emotional scenes outside parliament Turei resigned, saying her continued co-leadership of New Zealand’s third largest political party was “an impediment” to the Greens gaining votes in New Zealand’s upcoming election, which is less than two months away.

“Resigning as co-leader is my decision,” said Turei.

“The party did not ask me to resign and as recently as last night the executive gave me a vote of confidence.”

Turei said the intense public and personal attacks had become “unbearable” for her family, and the continued scrutiny was distracting attention away from election issues, namely the environment, poverty, and climate change.

In a comment piece for the Guardian last month Turei wrote that she committed benefit fraud over three years in the early 1990s because it was her only way to get by as a solo-parent in New Zealand with no formal educational qualifications.

“I did not have enough money to pay the rent and put food on the table. And so, like many – but not all – people faced with that choice, I lied to survive,” Turei wrote.

“I am in a privileged, fortunate position now; I have a voice and I have a platform. Thousands of other New Zealanders who are on a benefit don’t have that. In fact, they’re routinely silenced, marginalised and persecuted for the mere fact that they are poor.”

This week new Labour party leader Jacinda Ardern said Turei would not be offered a role as a minister if Labour formed a new government in the next election.

On social media the hashtag #Iammetiria has been trending for weeks, with other single mothers or beneficiaries sharing their stories of the desperate means they’ve taken to survive on the New Zealand welfare scheme.

However animosity and criticism of Turei’s past actions has at times become vitriolic. Two Green MPs threatened to resign unless Turei left the party. Co-leader James Shaw rejected their pressure and moved to suspend them from the party.

Shaw has resolutely stood by Turei throughout the ordeal, and has frequently praised her devotion to advocating on behalf of New Zealand’s poorest and most marginalised citizens.

“Metiria has been a servant for the party, the environment and for our people for many years,” Shaw said in a statement.

“Her dedication and commitment have been unparalleled. As I have said, she chose to tell her story in order to open a conversation – and she has done that,” said Mr Shaw.

Turei has been an MP for 15 years and will no longer be on the Green party list but will campaign for the party vote only in Te Tai Tonga leading up to the national election on 23 September.

Since her revelation three weeks ago, Turei has consistently said she does not regret her decision to front-up as it has drawn attention to the desperate circumstances of New Zealand’s most vulnerable people.

“I also think that as a country we are ready to have a conversation about what life is really like for people on benefits and for the 200,000 Kiwi children growing up in poverty,” Turei wrote in her opinion piece for the Guardian.

“How the welfare system set up to help people actually keeps them living beneath the poverty line; how the government uses the threat of further poverty against the poor; how the best thing we can do to lift people out of poverty is simply to give them more money.”