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Joe Williams: Employment Lawyer on the Supreme Court's ruling on disabled family carers · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The Supreme Court has ruled the parents caring for their
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: severely disabled adult children will now be recognized as home workers.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Now the change in titles parents to the minimum wage
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: for compensation if someone is paying them compensation, and thousands
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: of family careers who receive disability support funding could now
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: argue that they are now disability support employees. So the
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: employment lawyer Joe Williams joins me, Now, good morning to.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: You, Joe, Good morning Andrew. How are you.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I'm good? Maybe fighting for this for ages. They just
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: wanted to be recognized at the base level.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, So this case has quite a long history. It
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: was initially before the Employment Court who determined that they
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: were employees. The Court of applo turned that and the
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court has overturned it again. As you say, rent
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: in their status at employees as found by the Employment Court.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what does this mean? Does it mean? Is
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: it about money? And if so, do we have the
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: money to pay them?
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Well, it's going to be a fairly monumental change in
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: terms of how these individuals and support works are paid
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: and funded and how the government approaches that. So the
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: fact that they have now been recognized as employees obviously,
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  Speaker 2: as you said, brings them the minimum wage entitlement. It
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: also brings in things like holiday pay and an entitlement
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: to the treatment of an employee when it comes to
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: protections against unfair treatment and potential personal grievances. There's a
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: few different ramifications that flow from it. But in terms
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: of the funding aspect, particularly around holiday pay, it's potentially
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: a fairly major financial liability for the ministry, all.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Right, but the Ministry can't do anything about it because
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: it's gone to the Supreme Court. Now, is that right?
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, because that's the Ministry and the Government have
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: been fired against us because of the financial implications. But
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: now they're going to be forced under the law to
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: actually pay this holiday pay for someone who's looking after
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  Speaker 1: and if they're on disability support.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, so as the law is currently Obviously the Supreme
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Court is the highest court in the land. So that's
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: the end of the matter when it comes to the
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: current legal position. One option that remains open, and it
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: will be interesting to see whether there's movement from the
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: government is to legislate over the top of this. Certainly
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: there's been some movement in recent times around contractors versus
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: employees with the proposed introduction of a gateway test that's
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: looking like coming in early next year. Now that applies
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: to a slightly different situation to this one, but ultimately
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: it's an option for the government to legislate over the
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: top if they decide to go down that route. But
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: it's probably a little early to say at this point.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Now, we'll wait and see, and Joe and I thank
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: you very much for your time employment Lawyer Joe Williams.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live
• 3:06
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• 3:09
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