Tony Abbott Is Recruiting 20 Unpaid “Interns” For His Campaign, But Is That Legal?

On Monday, a new page appeared on Tony Abbott’s Battlelines website, launching something called the “Battlelines Bootcamp”. That “bootcamp” turned out to be a call for up to 20 unpaid “interns” — his word, not ours — to come and work on Abbott’s Warringah election campaign for the next eight weeks.

“Politics is a noble calling that is all about improving people’s lives,” the callout begins, before explaining that the new Battlelines Bootcamp will “introduce recruits to best-practice campaign techniques and provide on-the-ground practical campaign training”. The page encourages “people with advanced IT skills who have a demonstrated commitment to the values of the Liberal Party” to apply before the end of the week.

This announcement set off a few alarm bells — for one, as the Sydney Morning Herald noted, the callout for interns is “a clear sign of the enormous electoral pressure” Tony Abbott is under this election. Then there’s the part about those interns being unpaid, which led quite a few people to question whether Abbott’s desperate scheme is even legal.

Tony Abbott has confirmed with Fairfax that his interns will be unpaid.

It doesn't appear to be a vocational program run through any TAFE or university.

So when does the Fair Work Ombudsman begin their investigation into Tony Abbott's unlawful scheme?

— Matt Burke (@matttburke) March 5, 2019

We’ve looked into it, and in this case it turns out that the unpaid internships probably are legal. It’s worth taking a closer look, though, because this case is actually pretty helpful in demonstrating when it’s legal to not pay your interns — and when it’s not.

To get things straight, we spoke to Professor Andrew Stewart, who is the John Bray Professor of Law at the University of Adelaide. He’s an expert in employment law, and he told Junkee that the reason Tony Abbott’s internships are probably legal is “because in the end, there’s a solid argument that what’s going on here is people volunteering their time for a political campaign they believe in”.

That’s because for an unpaid internship to be illegal, a person needs to be in an employment relationship with the business or organisation they’re doing the work for. Now, that employment relationship doesn’t have to be a written contract — as the Fair Work Ombudsman explains here, it depends on a few things, like whether the business or the intern is getting the main benefit of the internship, whether the intern is doing work that would otherwise be done by a paid employee, and whether the internship is part of a vocational program (for example, part of a degree). Whether there’s an employment relationship also depends on whether the role was clearly intended as volunteering.

What’s The Difference Between A Volunteer And An Intern?

Professor Stewart suggests we draw the line between volunteers and interns “by saying that a genuine volunteering role is where the primary motivation is helping someone out or furthering a belief”. “An example could be law students going and working for free at a legal advice clinic, or people who want to get into the radio industry working for free at a community radio station,” he said.

In the case of the Battlelines Bootcamp, given that election campaigns are not-for-profit and have a long history of relying on unpaid volunteers, it’s pretty clear that what’s going on is basically volunteering.

“I think people can see that there’s a lot of volunteers who work for political parties, and understand that’s what they’re signing up for,” Professor Stewart told us. “I suppose, if it could be shown that none of the people who go through this have the slightest interest in the Liberal Party and getting Tony Abbott elected, then yeah that potentially changes things. But I find it hard to believe that anyone would go and work for Tony Abbott without being a supporter of Tony Abbott”.

absolutely frothing to see the bowtie-wearing private schoolboy chuds who enlist to spend eight unpaid weeks making memes for Toney https://t.co/o82UOPOvAp

— Alex McKinnon (@mckinnon_a) March 5, 2019

If The Battlelines Bootcamp Is Basically Volunteering, Should Tony Abbott Be Calling It An Internship?

So no, Tony Abbott isn’t running an illegal internship scheme. Professor Stewart pointed out that it’s still not ideal for Abbott to be calling this an internship in the first place, though.

“I don’t think Tony Abbott’s program is in a grey area legally, but I do think that it doesn’t help when trying to get the message out that unpaid internships can be wrong,” he told Junkee. By calling the Battlelines Bootcamp roles “internships” rather than “volunteering”, there’s a suggestion that these roles are more about training or helping out the intern than helping out Tony Abbott’s campaign.

“Even though that might not run into any direct legal problems, it’s helping to encourage this view that unpaid internships are generally okay, when in fact we know that very often they’re not,” Professor Stewart explained, pointing out that just last week a fashion start-up called Her Fashion Box was fined several hundred thousand dollars for underpaying several workers, including an unpaid intern who really should have been considered an employee. The intern was a graphic designer who worked for the company two days a week for close to six months, and wasn’t receiving any course credit.

“That’s an example of an unpaid internship which is definitely illegal, because it’s not connected with a professional training course and it’s not volunteering,” Professor Stewart pointed out. “Even if the intern agrees not to be paid, it’s not the same as doing something out of an altruistic desire to help someone or a cause”.

Anyway, at the end of the day, it’s pretty good that so many people were ready and raring to question the legality of Tony Abbott’s internship program. As Professor Stewart put it, “from my point of view it’s actually good that there was controversy around this, because it did show a heightened awareness in the community that unpaid internships can be wrong.”

Neither Tony Abbott’s office nor Battlelines responded to our requests for comment for this story. Maybe they’ll respond more quickly once their unpaid interns are on board. If you need advice or assistance in relation to any unpaid work arrangements you’re involved in, you can head to fairwork.gov.au or call the Infoline on 13 13 94.