Meteria Turei and the modern day witch hunters

Meteria Turei and the modern day witch hunters

Dr Lynley Tulloch

Meteria Turei made her confession of ‘benefit fraud’ in the depths of a rather cold and wet winter. It’s a time when the most vulnerable among us are struggling. Many single mothers and those on benefits are forced to live in inadequate, damp and cold conditions with their children. Their dignity is stripped from them by a punitive and controlling welfare system.

So to most of them she will be a hero. She highlighted their plight. She told their story. It’s a story of hardship and deprivation, of young children getting sick unnecessarily, of not being able to afford school camps or warm clothes.

The facts are undeniable. Jonathan Boston’s study of child poverty in New Zealand demonstrated that child deprivation rates in New Zealand in 2008 were 18 per cent. This compares unfavourably with rates of 6-7 per cent in the best performing OECD countries.

In 2014 the Office of the Children’s Commissioner stated that: “One in four of New Zealand children live in low-income households, and 17% of children regularly go without the basic things they need”.

In short, if you are a single mother who is dependent on a benefit in New Zealand then the chances are your child will suffer deprivation. You will be worried that your power will get turned off and you will not know how to pay various school fees or how to stretch a can of spaghetti all the way to next week.

I should know. I was a single mother in New Zealand on the domestic purposes benefit (DPB) fifteen years ago. The uncertainty of your next meal, the indignity of asking for help, the scrutiny of others and lack of independence are stressful. These are the harrowing side effects of a life at rock bottom.

Rock bottom became a place for me to build a new life for myself and my children. But I was lucky that I had the privilege of a university education and supportive family to scaffold this massive rebuild.

And if my children needed more than that can of spaghetti to see them into next week I would have made sure they got it by whatever means. This is what Turei did. She is not a ‘fraudster’. Her searing honesty only burns those whose privilege and good fortune in life has dulled their compassion.

This should be the focus of Meteria Turei’s confession – and not her suitability as a political candidate. Frankly, our political energies should be focused on sorting out the mess left behind from over thirty years of punitive and misguided neoliberal economic policies. These have resulted in an inadequate and punitive welfare system that has traumatised a whole generation of New Zealanders, and seen the gap between rich and poor grow exponentially.

It’s a story that should never have been written in New Zealand. It’s one that would have Sir Peter Fraser (1884-1950), co-founder of the New Zealand Labour Party turning in his grave. New Zealand has traditionally been based on socially democratic and progressive principles. No child in New Zealand should have to live in poverty – and yet the reality is that they do.

Meteria Turei's persecution in highlighting the plight of the single mothers on benefits was little more than a modern day witch hunt. Drop your pitchforks folks and face up to the far greater crime of New Zealand’s child poverty. If you really feel you need to do something, grab a can of spaghetti and take it to a food bank near you.

Because in this case we all need to stretch our compassion into next week, and the week after, until no child goes to school hungry. And until no parent has to lie to support her children.

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