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ISSN 1172-4153 | Volume 2 | Issue 30 |
| 20 March 2009
Homeowners who hire domestic cleaners, caregivers, nannies or perhaps even baby-sitters may be required to ensure their homes comply with OSH workplace safety laws, and human rights anti-discrimination provisions, if an idea being floated by Victoria University researchers gains traction. Victoria’s Institute of Policy Studies has this week published a provocative paper entitled,“Paid domestic work:A private matter or a public policy issue?”, which suggests householders could lose the right to discriminate on who they allow into their house to look after their children. “The reasons for the legislative sanction on dis-
on the
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Ashford beckons Above: Corporal Mathew Hopkins on patrol with the Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force 1 in Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan. Inset: Corporal Mathew Hopkins with his new born son Alex.
New twist on ‘Nanny State’ By Ian Wishart
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NZ-born solider killed by Taliban Wellington, March 20 – A New Zealand-born soldier in the Australian Army has been shot dead in Afghanistan. Corporal Mathew Hopkins, 21, who came from Christchurch, was shot in an intense firefight with Taliban insurgents near the village of Kakarak, 12km north of the Australian base at Tarin Kowt, on Monday. He was the third New Zealander in a foreign force to die on active duty in Afghanistan. The others were former Aucklander Sean Patrick McCarthy, 25, a member of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) killed when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb, and Labour leader Phil Goff’s nephew, United States Army Captain Matthew Ferrara, 24, killed in an ambush. Cpl Hopkins had just returned to the frontline after home leave for the birth of his son Alex. “All Mathew ever wanted to do was be in the Army and serve his country – he joined up as soon as he could after finishing his studies at Kenmore High School in Brisbane,”his mother Bronwyn said in a media statement. “We last saw Mathew four weeks ago when he came home to get married to Victoria, and for the birth of his son Alex. Mathew’s younger brother Corey and Michael Carter, who was to become Mathew’s stepfather in a fortnight, join with me in thanking the Defence Force for their support at this time.” In another bitter blow for the Australian Defence Force, a second soldier was killed yesterday while trying to dismantle a roadside bomb.
Dunedin
crimination in relation to paid domestic work in a private household are difficult to make out,”argues the Institute of Policy Studies.“However the areas in which such employees can be discriminated against during employment, including pre-employment and advertising, are wider…not just on the grounds of sex (including pregnancy and childbirth) but also on the grounds of religious or ethical belief, disability, age, political opinion, and sexual orientation.” In their paper, the researchers question whether allowing householders to retain those discrimination rights should be permitted to continue. “An employer is under an obligation to take into consideration the individual applicant’s or employee’s ability to do the job, regardless of stereotyped
assumptions about the latter’s sex,”says the policy paper. The reason for the study appears to be policies of the last Labour Government,which wanted more women in paid work and more children in childcare. Echoing that, the Institute of Policy Studies paper says: “Research shows that men still hold a disproportionate number of the more powerful positions in New Zealand society, including within universities (McGregor, 2008). One way of supporting more women to move into these jobs is by reducing their unpaid work. “While the growth of early childhood services is one type of support, having nannies, housecleaners and cooks can offer a higher level of support to these women. Such support means that if these women are partnered, their partners also do not need to undertake the totality of such unpaid work in a
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household and can pursue high-income careers.” Rather than encouraging parents to actually “parent”their children, the discussion paper talks about European trends including“the ‘commercialisation of human feelings’ suggesting that workers, mainly women, are required to sell their ‘emotional labour’. Outsourcing the care of children or other dependents has the potential to be more problematic than outsourcing other domestic work (England and Folbre, 2003). Such care giving can involve ‘love’ or at least close bonds.” The researchers note that the International Labour Organisation is working on new international standards for domestic workers to be published next year,“For this reason, New Zealand’s international obligations are likely to involve further attention being paid to the issue of the legal regulation of domestic workers in the coming years.”