Most supporters had written off the allegations as minor, a desperate plight for the welfare of her child, excusable under her circumstances. We now know that those circumstances are complete bullshit. After some poking and prodding around those close to Turei,  RNZ has revealed the litany of lies she preached from her Green co-throne to fabricate her “wider discussion” around welfare and poverty.

From the Checkpoint Twitter feed:

Radio NZ was like a ferret down a rabbit hole, and obviously got too close to something and she bolted. Now James Shaw faces the mammoth task of hauling the Green Party back up from 8.4% after the damage she’s done by digging in, but Shaw himself has lost credibility in his support for Turei. Rebuilding what they lost in the last week will be a hard task.

The election is heating up, and with the vultures circling Paula Bennett who knows what happen in the coming weeks.

UPDATE: from the Whaleoil Blog: 

A short time after she resigned I was also contacted by a person who claimed to be one of the sources of Radio NZ.

They told me that their family had provided more than $80,000 to Metiria Turei over four years while she was claiming the DPB.

If that is the case Work and Income must prosecute her, she has not committed a small fraud, it was a planned and deliberate fraud perpetrated on the taxpayer and at odds with her claims of poverty.

Maybe not so much a case of resigning because of the toll on her family, more that her lies and sense of entitlement got up the noses of the family and now they’re starting to spill.

What a disgusting example of a champion of the poor.