Employment Relations Amendment Bill Progress

Gerrad Brimble

Earlier this year we wrote about changes the Labour-led Government was proposing to make to employment law (you can read those articles here  and here).   These changes largely roll back various “employer friendly” amendments that were made over a number of years by the previous National government.

The Select Committee has now released its report on the draft Bill.  There have been a few minor changes, but the Bill is essentially the same. 

Briefly, the Bill (as it stands) contains the following changes:

The Bill still has some way to go before it becomes law, and there have been some indications of disagreement between the Labour and NZ First coalition partners about some of the proposed changes.  Whether or not the Bill passes in its current form remains to be seen.  At this stage though we think further substantive changes to the Bill are probably reasonably unlikely.  We will keep you updated.