‘Wiser to pay back cash first’ – Turei

Former Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei accepts it would have been wiser to have paid back extra welfare income she received before going public about the benefit fraud.

The comments came ahead of her shock announcement yesterday that she has quit as Green Party co-leader.

Just a day before, two MPs announced they would quit in protest at Turei’s confession.

Kennedy Graham and David Clendon were ousted from the Greens’ caucus on Tuesday, following the move which threw the party into chaos.

Turei said yesterday that she accepted it was a legitimate criticism that she had not paid the money back years ago, and that she could have made the choice to pay it back before she spoke publicly about the matter.

‘‘It would have been wiser to have done that in the past. I accept that that’s a legitimate criticism,’’ she said.

‘‘It’s not contempt for the system. I could have made that decision and I didn’t, and these are the consequences of that.’’

Asked what hard working people who paid their taxes might think, Turei said: ‘‘Some of them will judge, and I understand that, they won’t accept what I’ve done.

‘‘What I hope that they will do is understand how difficult it can be and to have some compassion for the people who are suffering for that right now,’’ Turei said.

It was put to her that she had ‘‘some very well connected relatives’’, and she agreed with the statement.

She said she was grateful to her broader family for supporting her in order to make it possible for her to get her law degree and have a ‘‘pathway out of welfare’’.

Asked why she found it necessary to rip off the benefit while getting support from her wider family, Turei said she had made a decision to have as much financial stability as she could.

‘‘You have to be careful,’’ she said. Work and Income considered a range of things as income ‘‘and they will cut your benefit if they know about it.’’

Turei has said wild accusations were being made against her. She said she was not going to repeat them ‘‘because they’re wild accusations’’.

‘‘People are sending me a large number of messages saying they’re really concerned about the investigation of my life, and to some extent I opened up for that and knew there would be some of it.

‘‘And it’s because they, too, suffer those kinds of interrogations and investigations into their lives as beneficiaries. And I think this is what we’re doing here, and what we’re seeing is what it’s like for a beneficiary to have to justify their lives, and people are having to do that everyday now.

‘‘We’re just seeing it played out in public. It’s partly what I expected but it has certainly gone on for longer than I expected.’’

She was asked whether her choice was as stark as it was being portrayed – either defraud the benefit or her child had to go without food. ‘‘This is the case for thousands and thousands of people, as it was for me . . .’’

‘‘Some of them will judge, and I understand that, and they won’t accept what I’ve done.’’ Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei