I’m not sure if we should write him off as a total political retard or we should go easy on him because he’s a special needs case.

Gareth Morgan says the Green Party’s recent troubles could be his party’s gain, as disillusioned greenies will be shopping around for a new environmentally-minded party.

Morgan’s fledgling party officially launched its election campaign today in Wellington with little fanfare.

The event was held in an understated church hall in the CBD. Around 60 people attended and of those, 20 were candidates and 15 were media.

Morgan, in T-shirt and suit jacket, entered the room to the tune of a pop song: “Everything is going to be all right”.

Not to be rude, but I can get 30 people to turn up to hear me speak in Wellington.  And depending on the topic, if I debated Nicky Hager for example, there would be 15 media as well.   (The offer still stands Nicky – name the place and time.)   But back to the phenomenon that’s the The Opportunities Party party.  (Marketing tip:  Don’t call your party something party.  It gets awkward).

He admitted that despite securing 4000 paid-up members, TOP’s main barrier to election was getting noticed above the better-funded, old parties. It was depending largely on the “viral spread” of its policies online.

Asked who was voting for him, Morgan said his supporters were not just youngsters drawn to ideas like a basic income of $200 a week. Many of them were parents or grandparents who had generational concerns, like their kids getting locked out of the property market or facing the uncertainty of a more casualised workforce.

That was the key message in his speech – that New Zealand was once a place which prided itself on a “fair deal” and ensured that each generation was better off than the last.

“Something has gone terribly wrong with that idea,” he said.

“The current generation, the baby boomers, may be the first to leave behind a New Zealand of shrinking opportunities, less fairness and more inequality than they were born into.”

Gareth Morgan has an epic case of Privileged White Guilt.  It made him visit North Korea and come back with ideas as to how to create a better world.  A world where people starve to death after eating bugs and grass.

But ten percent?  Not in our reality he won’t.   For that to happen, his policies will need to go so damn viral that the WHO will step in and shut it down before it becomes a global pandemic.

The really sad thing is to watch this grown up man take all this seriously.  He really believes he’s making a difference.

In the end, he will be able to say one thing:  at least he tried.

– Isaac Davison, NZ Herald

James Shaw is trying to hose down the insurrection inside the Greens.

That will be as much fun as herding black cats in a dark room with a stick.

Green Party leader James Shaw says it’s time for his MPs and supporters to “calm down” and “focus on steadying the ship”.

It comes after Green MP Julie Anne Genter lashed out at journalists on Thursday when asked if she’d be the party’s next woman co-leader.

“Don’t even think about asking me that question until after the election,” she responded.

Mr Shaw said Ms Genter was “just responding to the situation”.

“In what’s been a very difficult week for all of us, people have started to say ‘Will you be the next leader of the Green Party’ and so on, and she simply was just responding to that and saying we’ve just got to deal with what’s in front of us and let’s deal with [the leadership] after the election.”

It’s been a chaotic week for the Green party with co-leader Metiria Turei’s resignation on Wednesday, which followed two MPs quitting on Monday evening in protest over Ms Turei’s benefit fraud admission.

“It’s been a really tough week for everybody,” Mr Shaw said. “Passions are running pretty high; my advice to everybody is to just breathe through your noses and focus on steadying the ship.”

He said that it’s been tough on people outside Parliament as well, but people need to take a breather.

“For people who’ve spent months and months on an election campaign, when something like this happens they get emotional and upset. We just need to kind of calm down, pull together, steady the ship and focus on winning the election.”

After Ms Turei’s resignation the party is now “resetting the campaign”, Mr Shaw said.

Oh boo hoo. Shaw obviously has no idea that politics is a tough game, it certainly isn’t tiddlywinks.

None of this would have happened if Metiria Turei hadn’t flaunted her fraud, then lied like a flatfish about real details.

She was busted and she knew it which is why she gave up the fight and cried racism, sexism and every other -ism she could find.

James Shaw, a reasonable man but out of his depth, has almost zero chance against militant hard left commies that remain inside the Greens. Their watermelon just got redder on the inside.

fraud

I have to give Metiria credit for being bloody minded and staunch enough to go at this for several weeks and still try and get the media to start ignoring the crime and consider this an opportunity about debating the benefit system.

Vernon Small is another journo that’s unable to last longer than Metiria.

It had to be asked if there was a minimum support a person should get, or did we accept that people would have no financial support and be left homeless and living on the street.

“Is that acceptable? I don’t think it is. I’m challenging New Zealanders to set a higher more moral bar,” she said

“It’s not actually about them, it’s about me and the moral standard I set. We surely wouldn’t be a country that says people should just be abandoned, but we have become that by default because the safety net we believe ought to help has been eroded to the point where it does not.”

As for income levels, and the need for a gap between earned income and the benefit, she points again to superannuation, which is set at 66 per cent of the average wage.

“I would like to see the benefit at something like that – or above … but you’ve got to make sure if you are going to set benefits below, say, the average wage or below the minimum wage it is still above the poverty line and that it is consistently moving and is always above the poverty line.”

The definition of when a couple have a relationship “in the nature of marriage” and the intrusive policing of it particularly angers Turei.

“It gives (WINZ) enormous discretion. It’s as minor as having sex with a person two or three times a week … and then the assumption is that in a relationship like that the other person takes financial responsibility for you and for your children.”

Turei say that is “deeply offensive and dangerous”.

“It’s offensive in that it suggests that women in particular must only be waiting on the benefit until some husband or potential husband comes along to take support of them. But they are not entitled to independent financial security as of right, and they are. But it is also dangerous … the benefits are low so people are often looking for relationships to help with their financial circumstances” and that may not mean an appropriate relationship for her or her children.

Turei says what she has been talking about is not just her personal experience but the personal experience of hundreds and hundreds of people she has known over the years who have relied on welfare and been looking for the pathways off it.

Here’s the thing.

This is an election, and we should be discussing policies of all political parties.

Next, if we are going to have a debate about the efficacy, morality and overall cost of the welfare system, this isn’t the right time to do it.

Last, the debate must not be led by someone who defrauded the taxpayer for 5 years.

Get someone who isn’t personally invested in trying to mitigate a very serious situation where she may not just lose her job, she may be convicted and face jail time.

Let’s keep in mind that the vast majority of New Zealanders think she is a criminal that needs to face the legal consequences of her poor choices in life.   And let’s remind the media that we do not want her to give any more wins by taking our eye off her offending and debating the relevant merits of changes to the benefit system.

She hasn’t earned it.  Any of it.  Ever.

Metiria Turei has made a fatal error for her party and for herself. She should have resigned.

The Herald editorial from yesterday doesn’t hold back.

One act of dishonesty may be forgiven, two becomes harder to overlook. On top of her admission that she withheld information from Social Welfare about her living arrangements on the domestic purposes benefit, Metiria Turei has been found to have enrolled for an election at a false address. It begins to look like a pattern of behaviour of a person with too little regard for the obligations of honest citizenship, and we can only wonder, what more might emerge?

The Media party love to mitigate this through language. This was not dishonesty, it is not a dishonesty offence, it was fraud. Crimes Act qualifying fraud, jail time fraud.

The Green Party has reason to be worried, so much so it is remarkable that it stood by her yesterday when she did no more than renounce any claim to a ministerial position in a coalition with Labour. That was obviously for Labour’s sake, relieving its new leader, Jacinda Ardern, from having to answer the question, would she have the Greens’ co-leader in her cabinet?

Deputy PM isn’t a cabinet position. I think Turei knows she can force the hand of Ardern if push comes to shove.

That is not the only question Turei poses for Ardern. She presents Labour with a dilemma because attitudes to Turei’s conduct differ widely between voters on the left and those in centre. On the left there was admiration for Turei’s bold step to publicise the Greens’ welfare policy, so much so that the Greens lifted their support by five points in opinion polls published last weekend, while Labour dropped by around the same margin. To recover those supporters, Ardern might not want to be too hard on Turei, but if she wants to reassure voters in the centre, she may have to take a tougher line.

It wasn’t bold, nor was it honest to reveal something she has kept hidden for 25 years. She’s a dirty benefit cheat and a self-confessed fraudster. This was deliberate, calculated and big FU to the man, and now she is proud of it, grandstanding as though it was for smoking a doobie on the steps of parliament.

The attitude she adopts will provide an indication of Labour’s broader hopes following the change of leader. Ardern has made such a good start this week that already the party may have hopes of doing much more than regaining the votes lost to the Greens. With a more personable, “positive” leader it looks to have every chance of competing for the centre ground.

Labour’s ambition, no less than National’s, will be to do well enough at the election that is does not need to deal with Winston Peters. Yesterday Ardern ruled out any post-election agreement that would let Peters be Prime Minister. Despite Turei’s presence, she would no doubt prefer to deal with the Greens. But it would be much better for both parties if Turei did the decent thing and resigned, certainly from her Greens leadership and ideally from its candidate list for the next Parliament.

Fat chance of that happening. Labour will need to get well over 30% and steal most of the increase from National. A pretty face does not do that. Turei should have resigned, other MPs have resigned for much, much less.

That is what National’s Todd Barclay has done, though Turei and her co-leader James Shaw have been calling on him to go sooner. Having mounted a high horse against Barclay, Shaw is now in the embarrassing position of defending Turei’s effort to stay. Both of them are at risk of much more emerging from the past she has opened for examination. Newshub’s discovery that she was listed at the same address as the father of her child while she was on the benefit, plainly caught her by surprise. She had forgotten she gave that address for electoral enrolment so that she could vote for a friend. What else has she forgotten?

Turei and Shaw climbed on their high horse over Barclay, they’ve climbed on their high horse over many other indiscretions, including John Banks. Now they are mitigating everything. They are showing voters the double standard they accuse others of. What we know now from all of this is that the Greens are just like every other political party and their MPs just like every other politician. They are liars, cheats and hypocrites.

When she decided to reveal that she had not told Social Welfare she had flatmates helping pay her rent, she ought to have made sure she was telling the country everything that might emerge from media inquiries or the Ministry of Social Development’s fraud investigation. She has exposed herself, her party and its election partner to continuing risk. She could put an end to it by resigning now.

She needs to go. Others have gone for less.

-NZ Herald

Credit: Luke / Whaleoil

Metiria Turei has announced she will not resign as an MP.  She will however not seek a ministerial position in the next Labour/Green government.

This is getting beyond absurd now.

Anyone else… ANYONE else, in the same situation would have been fired, resigned and at least charged.

I suspect she won’t get away with it over the longer term, and MSD, the police and National are trying to push this to the other side of 23 September to remove all appearance of interfering in an election.

Had this been an MP in any other party, the Greens would have insisted on a formal government inquiry into welfare fraud by now.  To be consistent, they should still do it.  “How could I possibly have gotten away with it, had I not told everyone?  (I am so honourable, you see)”.

This poll won’t make the chief thief of the Greens happy:

An overwhelming majority of New Zealanders think Greens Co-Leader Metiria Turei was wrong to commit benefit fraud.

It’s been two and a half weeks since her admission that she lied about the number of flatmates she had while on the benefit between 1993 and 1998.

In the latest Newshub Reid Research poll 74 per cent of Kiwis said it was wrong for Ms Turei to lie to get a bigger benefit. Eighteen percent said it wasn’t wrong and 8 percent didn’t know.

And when lined up against party preference the situation becomes dire for the chief thief.

The vast majority of National, Labour, and NZ First voters said it was wrong for Ms Turei to lie to WINZ, as well as more than half of Green voters:

She just doesn’t care, and more than half of Green voters think it was wrong too.

Clearly, Turei is pitching to the bludger classes, and she won’t care so long as she can keep the Greens over 12%.

She should be charged with fraud.

-Newshub

fraud

The self-confessed fraudster, Metiria Turei, has also admitted to committing electoral fraud as well…and chucked her own mother under the bus.

Metiria Turei has confirmed her mother was a flatmate for part of the period she claimed the benefit.

Turei has also admitted to enrolling to vote at the same address as her baby’s father – despite not living there – so she could vote for a friend who was a candidate in Mt Albert in 1993.

An electoral law expert says enrolling to vote at an address you do not live at is an offence.   

The MP made the admission in a statement tonight, after Newshub published information from the habitation index that showed Turei listed at the same address as her daughter’s father, Paul Hartley, in both 1993 and 1994.

My reliable sources say her mother may well have also been on a benefit at the time.

The index also showed that in 1996 and 1998 Turei was listed at the same address as her mother.

In her statement, Turei said she did not live at the same address as Hartley.

“I was, however, enrolled to vote at the same address as him, which was in the Mt Albert electorate. A friend of mine was running as a candidate in Mt Albert in 1993, and I wished to vote for them. That was a mistake – one of many I, like many other people, made as a young person.”

Turei would not have been eligible for the domestic purposes benefit she was receiving if she did live with her baby’s father.

She confirmed that her mother was her flatmate for a period during the mid-1990s, but said they were financially independent while living together in the same home.

“I was the sole provider for my daughter. I was fully financially responsible for us both.”

Electoral law expert Graeme Edgeler said enrolling to vote at an address you do not live at is an offence. Time limits for enforcement means it would be too late to prosecute, Edgeler said, and the offence was not a particularly serious one.

Deliberate defrauding of taxpayers through lying

She either has to go herself or the Greens have to boot her out.

Jacinda Ardern must answer questions too about whether or not Labour will do a deal with someone who clearly takes diabolical liberties with the law. She’s defrauded the taxpayers with her little scam in the 90’s and now she’s admitted to committing electoral fraud.

This is obviously a woman who pays scant regard to the law, and Labour wants to deal with them?

-NZ Herald

You may not have realised it, but there is a NZ Seniors Party.   Most of the drivel they come out with isn’t worth soiling your device’s screen with.  But this time, they have a point.

Co Leader of the Green Party Metiria Turei’s admission to having committed fraud over a 5-year period has left the public of New Zealand wondering is there a law for politicians and a different law for the rest of us?

Her admission to this crime, had she not been a list MP would have seen her up in court facing charges of fraud.

Accountability must play a part in this situation, she is a list MP and as such her reputation should be beyond reproach but this is, by her own admission sadly not the case. Despite making the offer to pay back everything she has stolen from the tax payer this does not excuse her crime. Currently she is paid by the tax payer so how is she going to pay back all the money she fraudulently stole from the same tax payer who currently pays her wages?

The question we must ask ourselves is do we, the voting public of New Zealand want openly dishonest people running this country? I believe the answer to this question is obvious – NO we do not.

The honourable thing for Metiria Turei to do is to step down from the position of Co-Leader of the Green Party and leave parliament. They say there is honour among thieves let us see how honourable Metiria Turei really is.

I think we have the answer to that.  Metiria Turei has no remorse.  She knows it is “technically” a crime, but she thinks it is “morally” justified.  Given a chance, she would do it again.

Given more of a chance, she would like to be in a government that gives beneficiaries so much money that they no longer have the moral authority to commit a technical crime.

Pay them enough, and then (and only then), will defrauding the government be a crime as well as something immoral.  And I guess, only then Metiria would approve of someone being charged and prosecuted.

Until then?  Not so much.