“Oh good god. That means babysitters and paper boys would now become employees.”
is this legislation fair on 17-year old babysitters? Does it mean that parents have to pay ACC levies if they hire a babysitter and cannot pay them less than $10 per hour until they turn 17?
C’mon David, how can a 12yld work and babysit at the same time……and on a fucken road?
I don’t think the union should be dealing with these matters – but the police!
“Very sad, but kids die in accidents. Some fall down drains. Others get hit by cars. Each loss is a tragedy.”
True, but when it happens because the child was doing something to benefit an employer, who is profiting from that child, I think there should be some level of oversight.
Does this mean parents have to pay their babysitters annual leave and sick pay also? What about statutory holidays?
Is there a greater ACC levy for the child mowing lawns over the one at the mercy of the [babysat] children.
The Citizens Advice Bureaus should be kept busy with all of the enquiries from parents about their PAYE obligations to their babysitter and lawn mowing employees.
And to think Labour made a big deal about Peter Dunne taxing paper boys. (What’s the bet that has slipped their minds now.)
Forcing kids into an employee situation encourages passivity – the freedom and sense of responsibility and control of contract work would be lost – possibly the most valuable lesson the kids are learning.
Writing as a Roman Catholic – can I just say how ashamed I am of the way Caritas operates in this country.
I thought this was an April Fools Day joke, then I remembered that it’s December.
If you have a look at the author’s organisation’s website, you find powerful madness:
Caritas CEO Julianne Hickey said that Caritas opposed the Bill because, like the Welfare Working Group which preceded the legislation, the Bill focused on the motivation and behaviour of individuals who receive benefits, rather than the economic and structural context of unemployment.
Sound like a lefty view of the world? You bet it is.
If you read the other releases, you realise the Catholic Bishop’s Group has got someone like Penny Bright in charge of their research and advocacy unit. Let’s hope the Bishop’s Group wakes up soon. It’s going to cause them severe credibility problems if they don’t. Shame it is though, that the CEO clearly feels the same way as Lisa. Perhaps there’s something in the air conditioning.
Well I routinely leave my 8 yr old at home for short periods of time, Harriet. We used to live in Johnsonville and my son would run down to the dairy all the time at the age of 5 through to 7. He’d go and buy a pie and a bag pf chips and once a bag of nappies when I had the norovirus. A couple of times he took his five year old brother. It’s this weekly trip to the dairy that he misses most about NZ. Most other Mums were too paranoid to use their common sense about leaving kids alone.
m@tt (466) Says:
December 5th, 2012 at 2:18 pm
“Very sad, but kids die in accidents. Some fall down drains. Others get hit by cars. Each loss is a tragedy.”
True, but when it happens because the child was doing something to benefit an employer, who is profiting from that child, I think there should be some level of oversight.
Oh my God!!!! – this is why New Zealand became the PC hellhole I was fortunate enough to escape this time last year. GOD FORBID anyone should make a profit off a kid.
How the fuck else do kids learn their money skills? Trade is what our society is built on and if you don’t learn money skills young, you end up bludging off the state.
I’d not let a 6 year old do a paper run with a 12 yr old.
6 years old, you can’t judge traffic speed & distance.
You are allowed to let a kid walk home alone from school , but, not allowed to be alone in the house for any period.
Personally, I think the kid is probably safer in the house than walking home.
if you don’t learn money skills young, you end up bludging off the state.
That’s the idea Monique. That’s the whole idea.
Surely this isn’t the same Lisa Beech who worked for the Hutt South electorate between 1990 – 1992? And the same Lisa Beech who subsequently worked for Twevor himself?
Nah – surely not? 
http://nz.linkedin.com/pub/lisa-beech/15/b86/946
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=190935
Are the unions that desperate for funds?
Really, well with the startling and rapid demise in newspapers being delivered I guess the membership will be fuck all.
Have to think of something else to raise funds then.
Now about youth rates. If the useless Nats had dealt to this and we had a proper structure to work under that reflected value for money working then the unionists might have a had a chance to collect but as it is noone wants to employ young people to do anything. Just too expensive for the return.
Sad but true.
Even if the stupid turkey’s, who think that kids are worth paying lots of dosh too, don’t understand simple mathematical logic..
I don’t think the union should be dealing with these matters – but the police!
I don’t think it is any of their business.
If you crave that level of government interference, then I suggest you move to North Korea.
Kea#
“…………”..I don’t think the union should be dealing with these matters – but the police!..” -I don’t think it is any of their business Harriet. …..If you crave that level of government interference, then I suggest you move to North Korea….”
Charles Dickin’s ‘child mills’ are less dangerous than NZ roads!
And you reckon that kids should work and babysit at the same time on them?
Of course it is a police matter…….does the executive think it isn’t? 
You are all missing the point…. This is about employment stats – Labour want to be able to say they have created [x] thousand new jobs by rearranging the deck chairs and reclassifying existing “jobs” … Plus of course this will provide additional funding for unions which = more donations to Labour…. Think self serving unions and self serving policies and the answers reveal themselves.
Wreck1080:
Kids mature differently. A parent is the only one who can judge what their kids are capable of. In my opinion, fourteen is ridiculous as a designated age that you can leave kids alone.
Legislation in recent times stops kids working very early in the morning. Result – paper boys and girls have been laid off and replaced by car driving adults who heave them out of the window and it is hit and miss whether they land in the gutter.
As for ‘sub-contracting’ – what about the parents roped in to help sometimes.
Reid – I understand that the Holy See has recently been cracking down hard on the way that nominally Catholic organisations have simply come to mirror bien-pensant left secular advocacy groups.
However, this rot is somewhat inevitable – it’s good to bear in mind O’Sullivan’s Law that any organization that is not expressly right wing will become left wing over time.
Do you think anyone at Caritas has ever heard of, let alone read, JP2′s encyclical Centesimus Annus? Do you think they would even comprehend its lucid critique of the modern welfare state? No – and for that reason they do not act in accordance with social justice which, after all, is a Catholic idea.
Cato @230
re Caritas etc Couldn’t agree with you more. Large elements of the hierarchy and various other branches appear not too far removed from being agents of the old enemy,the friggen commies.
They’ve bought into “social justice,climate justice,” and any number of other fashionable causes,
Sometimes I feel like crossing the road to the Orthodox.
