Turei resigned from the co-leader position on 9 August 2017 amid a political controversy arising from her admission to lying to the Ministry of Social Development to receive higher payments when she was on the Domestic Purposes Benefit and later, to being enrolled to vote in an electorate where she was not eligible when she was 23.

[5] She resigned as co-leader of the Green Party and a list candidate immediately prior to the 2017 general election and retired from politics.

[20] In September 2009 Turei led the Green campaign opposing the government's plans to allow mining in New Zealand's national parks.

[22][23] In October 2012 her Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment bill was drawn from the ballot.

[25] During the 2017 election campaign, Turei publicly stated during an interview on TVNZ's Q+A Show that the New Zealand First leader Winston Peters "was on a roll partly because of a very racist approach to immigration."

Turei refused to apologise and reiterated that the Greens were still committed to negotiating a coalition deal with NZ First following the election.

[26] On 16 July 2017, during the launch of the Green Party's 2017 election campaign, Turei admitted to benefit fraud over a period of three years in the early 1990s, stating that she had not disclosed to Work and Income New Zealand that she was accepting rent from flatmates.

Turei justified her action on the grounds that she and her young daughter depended on the Domestic Purposes Benefit to survive.

[28][29][30][31] The left-wing journalist Chris Trotter and blogger Martyn Bradbury spoke out in support of her, faulting what they considered Work and Income's "punitive" treatment of beneficiaries.

[32][33] When the next Colmar Brunton poll came out covering the period 22 to 27 July, the Green vote had surged to 15%, with some of the support coming from Labour which had fallen to 24%.

[34] The right-wing pressure group New Zealand Taxpayers' Union announced it would invoice her $57,000 in damages but she said it was a political stunt and she would not respond.

[38] On 26 July 2017, Turei announced that she would be meeting with the Ministry of Social Development's investigative unit to calculate how much she would pay back in compensation.

[42] Turei resigned as co-leader of the Green Party and as a list candidate for the 2017 election on 9 August 2017, saying that the "scrutiny on [her] family has become unbearable.

[4] Not being on the list meant that, if she failed to win the electorate of Te Tai Tonga where she was standing, she would not return to Parliament after the election.

Specifically the case has been contrasted with that of Bill English (and the relative lack of media and public "outrage"), and to a lesser extent, that of John Key.

[46][47] According to The Spinoff journalist Madeleine Chapman, Turei's resignation had come as a result of Ardern sending two members of her team, rumoured to be Grant Robertson and her chief of staff Neale Jones, to inform Greens co-leader Shaw and his team that Ardern would not be giving Turei a cabinet or ministerial position within a potential Labour government.

As a face–saving measure, Turei had organised her own press conference where she announced that she would not ask for a ministerial position in a Labour–led government but would remain co-leader of the Greens until the 2017 election.

[48] During the 2017 election, Turei contested the Te Tai Tonga Māori electorate (which covers Wellington and the entire South Island).

[1][61][62] In February 2014, Turei and her husband were living in Waitati, close to the shore of Blueskin Bay, a coastal estuary to the north of Dunedin.