A second family has filed court papers challenging the rules around caring for severely disabled children.
In July, the government announced changes to the Funded Family Care scheme, including scrapping the employment relationship and raising the pay rates of family carers. Photo: 123rf
Last month RNZ reported the case of a disability advocate who has asked the Employment Court to decide if people with intellectual disabilities have the mental capacity to be employers.
Sushila and Arthur Butt are parents of two disabled children in their twenties, who have mental capacity of toddlers.
But in order to get government funding, the couple's children - Ashneel, 27, and Alisha, 23 - must be the employers.
Mrs Butt says that's absurd.
"They're forcing our children to be employers. They can't do anything, they can't read [or] write and they don't know what good faith means. They don't know what their obligations are," she said.
Mrs Butt would also like the government to raise the pay rates for family carers from the minimum wage to those of professional carers, between $20-$25 an hour.
In July, the government announced changes to the Funded Family Care scheme, including scrapping the employment relationship and raising the pay rates of family carers.
But the changes are yet to go through a select committee and Mrs Butt is worried if the current government is voted out, nothing will change.
The Ministry of Health says its working through details of changes to the employment relationship.
The ministers named in the action - Jenny Salesa, David Clark and Carmel Sepuloni - either did not respond to questions or refused to comment saying the case was before the Employment Court.
The Ministry of Health and the ministers must file their statement of defence by early December.
