An advertisement on the Green Party website:
Intern for Kevin Hague
Kevin Hague’s office has a vacancy for a parliamentary intern for 2014.
This is an unpaid, voluntary position based in Wellington. A minimum of 8 hours a week is required but the hours worked are negotiable. You will be required to go through a reference check and application process with both Kevin’s office and Parliamentary Service.
This position will give you the opportunity to see first-hand the work environment and process of a Green Party MP, and contribute to their team. The nature of the work is flexible around the applicants’ level of skill and interest but some background in Health, ACC, NZ politics, or Rainbow Issues will be preferred. . .
This from the party which is promoting the so-called living wage.
It obviously doesn’t apply here.
Homepaddock 
To laugh or cry…you must need a hypocrisy bypass to be Green.
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I wonder when woofers will be outlawed? I doubt food and board would represent minimum wage let alone living wage.
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All political parties – including yours – make use of, and are no doubt grateful for, volunteers. Belief that people in paid employment should be paid a minimum wage is also shared across parties although there is disagreement about how the minimum is set. But there is nothing about that belief that implies people should not be permitted to volunteer their time!
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While I fully support Kevin’s comment I do think we should be very careful about the fine line between genuine volunteering for mutual benefit and exploitation. In the US interns have now become an exploited source of cheap labour and many have worked for years on no pay in the hope of finally scoring a job and it discriminates against the poor: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/unpaid-internships-mere-exploitation-095500544.html
I am also aware of wwoofers who are exploited by their hosts and the relationship stops being one of mutual benefit.
Both are great schemes and should be allowed to continue but we shouldn’t be complacent about the potential to step over the line.
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Perhaps, then, you could answer a question – how long has Eugenie Sage’s 2013 intern worked without pay and what were/are her hours of work?
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What does it matter Tracey?
Its a free country if someone wants to work for the looney tunes Greens for free its between them and the Greens.
Stupidity isn’t against the law
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True, if only the Greens saw it that way.
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Come on Dave, you’re usually really good at answering questions.
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