From Duncan Garner, interesting read
I struggle to have sympathy for Turei, who quite frankly always got a free ride from a few fawning fruitcakes in the press who loved calling her "Met".
Turei threw herself out there, she got what all self-serving and ultimately selfish politicians deserve – a feral and feverish examination by the media.
She failed spectacularly. Her story failed to stand up and two normally mild-mannered Greens called Ken and Dave were told to shelve their principles under the section, "silence".
Good on them that they didn't become blind sycophants like the others. Principles matter – please add intolerance to the Greens' list of work-ons.
Yes, Turei's welfare fraud admission was brave and risky but two things matter: a decent strategy and telling the whole truth.
From the real chance of a role in victory, the Greens might all be heading back to the welfare queue. Oh the irony.
Can you believe the Greens may actually lose all their MPs at the election? It's entirely possible based on the latest polling. Talk about an environmental disaster, the planet needs a powerful Green lobby present in Parliament.
But you can't blame Turei entirely. There's the Jacinda effect too and more on that shortly.
But the Greens had blinkers on. A small but rowdy bunch of Turei's supporters on the social media platform Twitter backed her with a mix of anger and racism directed at the cheeky privileged "whities" who, god forbid, dared to have a view.
Stupidly, the Greens mistook the Twitter action as reflecting wider voter support. Be that a lesson for all the players in the coming week.
A Twitter hero does not mean you are either popular or doing the right thing. The biggest political losers are the ones who take the greatest fall. That's Turei this past term. No debate needed.
It's an insult to the New Zealander of Year Awards that she's been nominated. She's no hero.