Backpacker job probe welcomed
An experienced Christchurch backpacker host is pleased officials are investigating alleged abuses of work exchange schemes for international visitors.
Through the HelpX website Linda Constable has housed and fed many travellers in exchange for working up to four hours a day around her property.
She is glad the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is looking into alleged exploitation of board-for-wages deals offered by businesses because guests had told her stories of motels, backpacker hostels, farms and vineyards using them as unpaid labour.
Constable said examples were a Canadian couple who worked eight hours a day erecting farm fences and a young Taiwanese woman who did pruning at a vineyard. ’’They didn’t give her gloves. Her hands were all blistered and cut, it wasn’t a good look.’’
Sometimes backpackers lacked transport and risked getting stuck on a property if they relied on the owner to take them to the nearest bus stop.
Constable said schemes such as HelpX and Willing Workers on Organic Farms (Wwoof) were a great way for visitors to meet real Kiwis and most hosts were in it for the right reasons.
Youth Hostel Association (YHA) chief executive Mark Wells also welcomed the MBIE investigation and said he had raised the issue of unpaid labour at accom- modation forums over the years because it led to an ‘‘uneven playing field.’’
He said the hostels YHA managed occasionally used volunteers for special projects, such as spring cleaning, but they did not employ them in lieu of frontline staff.
However, there was heavy dependence on volunteer labour throughout the rest of the backpacker sector.
‘‘I suspect that it makes a pretty important contribution in the financial performance of smaller operators when they are not having to incur wages.’’
Labour Inspectorate southern regional manager Stuart Lumsden said the investigation, prompted by about 12 complaints, hinged on the definition of ‘‘employment’’ as opposed to voluntary work.
‘‘We will take this to the Employment Relations Authority and make sure their interpretation of employment is the same as ours, so there will be a test case.’’
Wwoof New Zealand director Andrew Strange said MBIE had approached him about four hosts it was concerned with, but none of them had ever been registered members of his organisation.
Strange said Wwoofers worked a maximum of six hours a day, received free accommodation and meals, and were treated as part of the family.
‘‘We agree that if there are hosts using volunteers to run their business and exploit them, this is not appropriate, and if they are Wwoof hosts we will address the situation,’’ he said.
Government agencies have been given the tick for their investment management practices, which Finance Minister Bill English says should give taxpayers confidence their money is being used effectively. The first release of the Investor Confidence Rating for government agencies, done by Treasury, has ranked all of those surveyed with a mid- to high-level rating. English said the rating was an evidence-based assessment of how the Government’s most investment-intensive agencies were performing, and where they could improve. Inland Revenue attained an ‘‘A’’ rating, and ‘‘B’’ ratings went to ACC, Defence, and NZTA. The Ministry of Education and the Department of Corrections each received a ‘‘C’’.
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The Canadian province of British Columbia has introduced a new 15 per cent property transfer tax on foreign real estate buyers in Vancouver. The new measure is geared at increasing affordability in the city’s red-hot housing market. The new tax will drive up costs for foreign investors, who are mostly from mainland China and who have helped make Vancouver Canada’s most expensive property market. The new tax takes effect on August 2.