A Wary Christmas

Santa's knee 'out of bounds'
12 December 2006
By IAN STEWARD

This will be a wary Christmas for shopping mall Santas, who are being trained not to give children or their parents any cause for complaint.

Modern Santa recruits are highly vetted, police and character-checked graduates of a human resources "Santa School". The school is run yearly by recruitment agency Westaff which supplies more than 550 Santas around Australasia.

The training includes instructions to keep hands visible at all times, with white gloves to help this, and not to make promises that parents cannot keep, such as expensive toys or "bringing daddy back for Christmas".

Some Santas no longer allow children to sit on their knees to protect themselves from allegations of impropriety. Westfield Riccarton has installed an extra-wide armchair so children can sit next to Santa.

Ten-year Santa veteran Gilbert Roberts, of Harvey Norman and Merivale Mall, said he had developed the technique of sitting children on the arm of his chair and letting their legs cross his lap. "I do it for my own security."

However, the politically correct atmosphere around children had made the seasonal job less attractive, he said.

"Men are frightened to do anything, especially since the Peter Ellis case," he said.
Roberts said he thought the training was a good idea and was effective at weeding out the wrong applicants.

"When I applied last year there was another guy as well. This guy was real strange, just ... strange, and after the first day of training he didn't come back," he said.

Westaff recruitment consultant Kerri Rogers said the company had not banned their staff from sitting children on their knees.

"Most of them are grandfathers. I've had them saying, 'If children can't come up and sit on my knee I won't be doing this next year'," she said. The process had made the job much safer but she agreed Santa applicants were becoming harder to come by due to "the PC nature of the role".

South City Centre manager Malcolm Harris said when it advertised for a Santa it received only four replies, and two of those were from young drama students. "We look for mature-age people. The PC thing has narrowed it down ? there wasn't a lot to choose from," he said.

South City's Santa, Karl Thomsen, said he thought the training was good but "sometimes it's a bit of overkill".

- The Press