Labour’s interns

It was interesting listening to commentators linking Labour’s international volunteer programme to minimum wage, living wage, employment laws and so on. Why is nobody drawing a parallel with young people going away and doing some volunteering work for non- profit organisations like World Vision, and other NGOs? Surely Labour is a nonprofit organisation. How is this in any way connected to the student visas Labour has a policy to cut?

Those poor students are charged thousands of dollars for lousy courses. These volunteers are keen political students who wish to explore another country and their democratic operations. If anything, we need to compare them with students who go on volunteering work, not living in fivestar comfort but down to earth.

Further, to repeatedly refer to the marae as a slum is doing a disservice to a group of people who are doing fine community service, and constantly referring to the volunteers as “slaves” dishonours the memory and hardships true slaves endured. R. Dawson, Highland Park.