page_title: Metiria Turei
section_title: 2017 general election
hierarchical_section_title: Metiria Turei / Political career / Member of Parliament / 2017 general election
caption_attribution_description: English: Political activists with banners saying "I stand with Metiria" outsige Parliament grounds, Wellington
context_page_description: Metiria Leanne Agnes Stanton Turei is a former New Zealand politician. She was a Member of Parliament from 2002 to 2017 and the female co-leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand from 2009 to 2017. Turei resigned from the co-leader position on 9 August 2017 amid a political controversy arising from her admission to lying to the Ministry of Social Development to receive higher payments when she was on the Domestic Purposes Benefit and later, to being enrolled to vote in an electorate where she was not eligible when she was 23.
  She was the Green Party spokesperson on Inequality, Justice, and Building and Housing. She resigned as co-leader of the Green Party and a list candidate immediately prior to the 2017 general election and retired from politics.
context_section_description: During the 2017 election campaign, Turei publicly stated during an interview on TVNZ's Q+A Show that the New Zealand First leader Winston Peters "was on a roll partly because of a very racist approach to immigration." Her comments triggered fierce criticism from Peters and NZ First Deputy Leader Tracey Martin, who rejected Turei's claims and warned that there would be consequences for the Greens in any post-election talks with NZ First. Turei refused to apologise and reiterated that the Greens were still committed to negotiating a coalition deal with NZ First following the election.
  On 16 July 2017, during the launch of the Green Party's 2017 election campaign, Turei admitted to benefit fraud over a period of three years in the early 1990s, stating that she had not disclosed to Work and Income New Zealand that she was accepting rent from flatmates. Turei justified her action on the grounds that she and her young daughter depended on the Domestic Purposes Benefit to survive. During the campaign, Turei advocated raising the domestic purposes benefit for solo parents and low-income families. Turei's disclosure attracted polarising responses from other politicians, the New Zealand media, and blogosphere, and criticism from Social Development Minister Anne Tolley, Labour Party leader Andrew Little, and media commentators Barry Soper and Patrick Gower. The left-wing journalist Chris Trotter and blogger Martyn Bradbury spoke out in support of her, faulting what they considered Work and Income's "punitive" treatment of beneficiaries. When the next Colmar Brunton poll came out covering the period 22 to 27 July, the Green vote had surged to 15%, with some of the support coming from Labour which had fallen to 24%. The low ratings caused Little to resign the Labour Party leadership on 1 August.
  The right-wing pressure group New Zealand Taxpayers' Union announced it would invoice her $57,000 in damages but she said it was a political stunt and she would not respond. Some beneficiaries and anti-poverty advocacy groups spoke in support of Turei and she said she had spoken with other beneficiaries who had been withholding information about their benefit status from Work and Income. Turei also advocated an amnesty on beneficiaries, while acknowledging that she had not been aware of an amnesty instituted during the 1990s. On 26 July 2017, Turei announced that she would be meeting with the Ministry of Social Development's investigative unit to calculate how much she would pay back in compensation. It was then revealed that in 1993 Turei had been enrolled to vote at the same address as her child's father. Turei denied living with the father, which would have disqualified her eligibility for the domestic purposes benefit. She stated that she had enrolled at that address in order to vote for a friend; such conduct constitutes an offence under the Electoral Act.
  On 7 August 2017, Green Party MPs David Clendon and Kennedy Graham announced that they were planning to resign as Green Party candidates for the 2017 election, due to the fraud revelations and Turei's handling of the resulting situation. Both Clendon and Graham resigned from the party caucus the following day, after the party made moves to remove them.
  Turei resigned as co-leader of the Green Party and as a list candidate for the 2017 election on 9 August 2017, saying that the "scrutiny on [her] family has become unbearable." She stated that her intention was to not return to Parliament after the election. Not being on the list meant that, if she failed to win the electorate of Te Tai Tonga where she was standing, she would not return to Parliament after the election. During August, the Green party fell in opinion polls to around the 5% threshold, below which there wouldn't be representation in Parliament, and Labour's new leader, Jacinda Ardern, generated such a turnaround that by the end of the month, Labour overtook National in the ratings. In its 26 August edition, the New Zealand Listener summarised the situation as follows:
  Metiria Turei's spectacular own goal in admitting to ben
caption: Political activists with banners saying "I stand with Metiria"
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