Poor form all round

benefit fraud when she was a solo mum studying to be a lawyer.

But no, Turia was afforded the simple dignity of a casual combo of black trousers and jumper, and a scarf that looked warm. It would seem, despite her considerable evil, she can feel the cold like anyone else.

This was partly the point of her confession, that she had failed to disclose she had flatmates in order to receive a bigger benefit, when announcing the Greens’ bold welfare policy.

As surprising as the soulpurging was, the subsequent shock, awe and vitriol has disfigured Turia’s wrong-doing beyond reasonable recognition. The hypocrisy shown by some opposing MPS, acting as if this was the greatest crime perpetrated by a New Zealand politician, has been dumbfounding.

Like thousands of others, Turia was able to get a benefit she was not entitled to. Yes, it was a fraudulent misuse of taxpayer money. But she wasn’t rolling around in a money pit. She sought comfort and security, and fell to temptation as many people do.

Do her past actions really rile taxpayers more than, say, the hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel allowances claimed by former MPS each year? Perks defended by former Prime Minister John Key with the limp justification they were ‘‘pretty well established’’.

The risk was always going to outweigh the reward for Turia. Though she has largely incensed a wedge of the public who would never vote Green anyway, too many of those likely to empathise with her past struggles won’t vote at all. The greater offence is that her revelation has taken attention away from the ideological ambitions of the Greens’ welfare policy – that the poor deserve financial security, no strings attached. It deserves a national debate.

Instead, the conversation has been reduced to: When will she pay it back? Should she step down? These questions are of little consequence next to child poverty, establishing what every Kiwi is entitled to, and what they should be expected to work for.