KEY POINTS:
A Rotorua beneficiary advocate is threatening court action against Work and Income staff who refused to enrol unemployed 18 and 19-year-olds on the dole.
Rotorua People's Advocacy Centre manager Paul Blair says some zealous staff are breaking the law by telling teenagers that they can't get the dole until they turn 20.
The national head of Work and Income, Patricia Reade, yesterday apologised to 19-year-old Rotorua jobseeker Danielle Carroll, who said that she and another teenager were told at a seminar three weeks ago that they had to be 20 to get the benefit.
"I have looked into the case of this particular client and found that we could have handled the situation better," Ms Reade said.
Mr Blair has now helped Ms Carroll to get the dole, but is advertising in Rotorua newspapers to find other teenagers to join a class action against Work and Income's treatment of young jobseekers.
By law, the dole is available to anyone aged 18 and over who is available and seeking work.
"Other people have been pushed away and had their applications refused to be taken, or told, 'prove that you have been to 15 employers looking for a job and when you come back we'll think about taking an application'," Mr Blair said. "That is quite unlawful as well."
He said Work and Income and Rotorua Mayor Kevin Winters boasted last month that there were no 18 and 19-year-olds on the unemployment benefit in the Bay of Plenty region on June 30.
Ms Reade said there were 990 18 and 19-year-olds on the dole at the same date nationally. But in April former Employment Minister David Benson-Pope reasserted a target to have all under-20-year-olds in work, education or training by the end of this year.
Mr Blair said the zero tally for the Bay of Plenty did not mean that every teenager was in work or training.
"The reason it's so low is because they have all been hunted out of the department," he said.
"The question we are asking is: 'How come they are not on the unemployment benefit if they haven't got jobs?' We'll be taking a court action on this."
Ms Carroll worked in the hospitality industry in Rotorua and in packhouses in Opotiki, but moved back to Rotorua last month after falling out with a friend in Opotiki. She applied to Work and Income for the dole and attended a seminar with a man called Jimmy.
"After we started he asked if there were any 18 or 19-year-olds," she said.
"There were two of us. He took us through the whole session and at the end he asked to speak to the two of us.
"He said to us we couldn't apply for the unemployment benefit unless we attended a course and then we would be able to access the student allowance, and you had to be 20 to get the unemployment benefit."
Ms Reade said Work and Income staff were now contacting Ms Carroll "to apologise and make sure she is getting all the assistance she is entitled to".
Auckland beneficiary advocates Mike Dark and Josie King said they had not heard of similar cases in Auckland.
A Hamilton advocate, who wished to be known just as Annie, said it was common for dole applicants of all ages to be asked to gives names and addresses of up to 20 employers they had approached for work. But she did not know of any cases where under-20-year-olds had been singled out.
