Joe Williams: Employment Lawyer on the Supreme Court's ruling on disabled family carers

A Supreme Court decision has finally settled the long-running battle over whether family carers should be paid. 

The ruling —brought by parents Christine Fleming and Peter Humphreys, who care for their severely disabled adult children— confirms family carers are entitled to pay. 

Employment lawyer Joe Williams told Andrew Dickens it’s a monumental shift in how these workers are recognised and how the Government will need to respond. 

He says it brings them a minimum wage entitlement, holiday pay, and protections against unfair treatment. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Supreme Court has ruled the parents caring for their
severely disabled adult children will now be recognized as home workers.
Now the change in titles parents to the minimum wage
for compensation if someone is paying them compensation, and thousands
of family careers who receive disability support funding could now
argue that they are now disability support employees. So the

(00:21):
employment lawyer Joe Williams joins me, Now, good morning to.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
You, Joe, Good morning Andrew. How are you.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm good? Maybe fighting for this for ages. They just
wanted to be recognized at the base level.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yes, So this case has quite a long history. It
was initially before the Employment Court who determined that they
were employees. The Court of applo turned that and the
Supreme Court has overturned it again. As you say, rent
in their status at employees as found by the Employment Court.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Okay, so what does this mean? Does it mean? Is
it about money? And if so, do we have the
money to pay them?

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Well, it's going to be a fairly monumental change in
terms of how these individuals and support works are paid
and funded and how the government approaches that. So the
fact that they have now been recognized as employees obviously,
as you said, brings them the minimum wage entitlement. It

(01:22):
also brings in things like holiday pay and an entitlement
to the treatment of an employee when it comes to
protections against unfair treatment and potential personal grievances. There's a
few different ramifications that flow from it. But in terms
of the funding aspect, particularly around holiday pay, it's potentially

(01:45):
a fairly major financial liability for the ministry, all.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Right, but the Ministry can't do anything about it because
it's gone to the Supreme Court. Now, is that right?
I mean, because that's the Ministry and the Government have
been fired against us because of the financial implications. But
now they're going to be forced under the law to
actually pay this holiday pay for someone who's looking after
and if they're on disability support.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yes, so as the law is currently Obviously the Supreme
Court is the highest court in the land. So that's
the end of the matter when it comes to the
current legal position. One option that remains open, and it
will be interesting to see whether there's movement from the
government is to legislate over the top of this. Certainly

(02:34):
there's been some movement in recent times around contractors versus
employees with the proposed introduction of a gateway test that's
looking like coming in early next year. Now that applies
to a slightly different situation to this one, but ultimately
it's an option for the government to legislate over the
top if they decide to go down that route. But

(02:56):
it's probably a little early to say at this point.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Now, we'll wait and see, and Joe and I thank
you very much for your time employment Lawyer Joe Williams.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
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