Economist Milton Friedman famously said, "there is no such
thing as a free lunch".
For decades there has been a steady growth in non-standard
employment agreements and arrangements in New Zealand, including
unpaid internships. A key purpose of an internship is to gain
experience, skills or contacts that may assist a prospective
employee to gain employment or work opportunities in the future,
but is it exploitation?
In 2015 a young New Zealand activist and filmmaker created
international headlines by sleeping in a tent on the shores of Lake
Geneva because he couldn't afford to pay for rent during his
unpaid internship with the United Nations. That same activist
released a documentary cataloguing unpaid internships, raising the
shortcomings with the practice to New Zealand. Similarly, the
International Labour Office released a working paper titled
"The regulation of internships: A comparative study"
which advocates that internationally internships or work
