If NZ is anything like England you have a pretty high youth unemployment rate, and an economy that is struggling. Lowering the wage for under 18s for example, means that companies can afford to employ more young people which gets them off of unemployment benefits (taking out of the system) and gets them to pay taxes (putting money back in). Cheap labour means more gets done, aka a rise in productivity. And a rise in productivity usually leads to a rise in profits, which then means companies can offer more jobs and the cycle leads to more people with jobs paying taxes, and therefore a much healthier national economy.
It might not be fair, and is most likely ageist. But in this day and age with the current world economy governments are going to have to do whatever they can to get out of debt, and having young people drain national resources because they are having trouble finding work isnt going to help anything.
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