Green Party leader James Shaw says his former co-leader Metiria Turei paid "the ultimate political price" for her honesty about historic benefit deception.
Speaking to Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB this morning, Shaw said he expected the Greens to bounce back after dropping to 8.3 per cent in a poll released yesterday, but said "Metiria's not coming back".
Turei stepped down as the party's co-leader last night, saying the scrutiny of her family following the revelations had become unbearable.
This morning Shaw responded to questions from Hosking about whether the party had been naive not to expect this by saying if he had been before, he certainly wasn't now.
"My main regret is for Metiria. She threw everything into this and politically paid the ultimate price."
He said seeing the toll the saga took on Turei's family shocked him, but he was glad a conversation had been started.
"As a result of the campaign Metiria has been running, thousands of people have come out of the woodwork to say 'these are the circumstances that I'm in, and thank you for taking this on and speaking up'.
"So it is important to me we continue to speak for these people and do them the honour of continuing the campaign to end poverty in New Zealand."
The poll result, which saw the Greens fall 4.7 per cent from 13 per cent in a week and a half, was about what the party expected, Shaw said.
He thought the drop was a result of both Labour's sudden boost after appointing Jacinda Ardern as leader and fallout from the Turei saga.
"We knew the Jacinda effect was going to be significant and we knew there was a lot of distraction around Metiria's story.
"But we've been in worse shape so we can come back from this."
He expected the party to take in at least 8 per cent of the votes in the election and said he'd be "gutted" if they only got 6 per cent, though thought that was unlikely.
The party would achieve this by focusing on policy, he said - cleaning rivers, ending poverty in New Zealand and tackling climate change.
Now Turei had resigned he did not think there would be much more focus on her story.
"I think now she's actually gone, I don't see why people would keep doing that."
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