by Cameron Slater on July 21, 2017
Yeah, still finding it funny I ripped off taxpayers
Interesting interview with Turei in E-Tangata from Sunday 2 August 2015. The interviewer was Dale Huband.
DH: “You were a young mum when you went to Law School?
MT: “Yes. The baby was a year old when I started. I thought I’d better pull my socks up. I realised she relied only on me. We weren’t going to rely on a man or the state to take care of us.”
She knew then that she had been defrauding “the state” for a number of years. So, why did she lie to E-Tangata back then?
Clearly she was relying on the state to take care of her…in fact she lied to the state so that they could take care of her more.
Then some more interesting revelations from a NZ Herald interview in 2002:
“Grandma, a former Mayor of Birkenhead and then of North Shore City, said there would be plenty of whanau to look after Piupiu. Mum, an unsuccessful Auckland mayoral candidate last year and an unemployed contract lawyer who has worked for the Greens fulltime since March, said Ann Hartley had always been supportive of Piupiu, herself and her family. “I think that will remain,” said Metiria Turei. Metiria Turei is separated from Ms Hartley’s son Paul.”
So, Turei expects everyone to think that she was on the breadline while on a DPB – Ann Hartley would never have let her grand-daughter starve. More to the point we now know who the baby daddy was, so shouldn’t IRD be going after him for being a dead beat dad as well?
“Porky” is telling porkies again.
But wait, she also told Woman’s Weekly in 2009:
But at the age of 23, a then-single Metiria discovered she was pregnant and realised she would have to make some drastic changes in her life. “My baby would need someone to care and provide for her and the only person in the world who was going to do that was me.”
Soon after Piupiu’s birth, Metiria got her act together, enrolling at university for a second time. She threw herself into a law degree and, although studying full-time while raising her baby daughter was extremely challenging, Metiria – who remains in contact with Piupiu’s father – says the sacrifice was worth it.
None of her stories stack up and while she thinks this is all shits and giggles, laughing it all off to the Guardian, it is us taxpayers who have had to pay for all this malarky. Even in the Guardian the story changes again:
I had my daughter, Piupiu, at 22. I was a single, young mum, with no formal education qualifications. After she was born, I knew I needed to forge a career for myself so that I could financially support us and give my girl the best life possible. I made the choice to go to law school.
Over a period of five years, I received a training incentive allowance (a benefit that has since been ditched by our current government), as well as a payment for single parents. I also had help from my family, and my daughter’s father’s family.
Despite all of that support, which is much more than many people in similar circumstances have, 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.
So, she admits to an even bigger welfare and possibly tax fraud. Not only did she cheat WINZ, she also got money, presumably undeclared as well, from her family and the baby daddy’s family…you know the guy she refused to name. On top of that she took in boarders and had yet more undeclared income. She really is a piece of work.
Metiria Turei is a self-confessed benefit cheat, the father of her kid is a dead beat dad who owes the taxpayer literally thousands of dollars in unpaid child support, and she thinks this is all some sort of political stunt and funny.
I think the Greens may well rue the day when they decided promoting and celebrating benefit fraud was a valid political tactic.
She should pay back the money…and so should the father for his liable parent contribution.