An update of the Holidays Act is still expected to be introduced as a bill to Parliament this year, however the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment says there will not be time to pass it before the election. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
The biggest overhaul of holidays laws in two decades has been delayed further and now will not happen before the election.
In 2021 the government said the new law would come in last year, but that was delayed, and it has now been put off again.
Fixing breaches of the complex current act has cost employers hundreds of millions of dollars.
In a new development on the payout front, public hospitals now say they will begin paying back current staff from July this year.
As of November, the hospitals' joint liability to 270,000 current and former staff was put at almost $2 billion.
Health NZ has not provided an updated figure by the end of Friday.
The law update is still expected to be introduced as a bill to Parliament in the middle of the year.
But the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment said there would not be time to pass it before the election.
Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Michael Wood said this was because of the "highly technical and complex nature of the draft bill".
"The bill is highly complex and will have wide-reaching impacts on the economy and so we are ensuring there will be a full and robust select committee process.
"This means the bill will not be passed this parliamentary term.
"Businesses and workers need as much clarity as possible given issues with the current Holidays Act so we are taking the approach of 'measure twice, cut'."
The new laws are expected to change how holiday pay and leave entitlements are calculated.
The process has been glacial since 2018, frustrating the chief executive of the Payroll Practitioners Association David Jenkins, who is also sceptical the new law will be workable.
He had written to the ministry, warning he did not believe "the approach can provide what is needed to resolve the complexity of the Holidays Act in becoming more simplified and usable in payroll and payroll software".
"Whether we actually get a new act depends on who the government is after the election in October," Jenkins said in an online post.
He was hearing from the industry that the select committee process around the bill could take a year, he said.
A union hoped the overhaul would eventually go ahead.
New Zealand Council of Trade Unions president Richard Wagstaff said it was highly likely there were employers who were not paying staff properly, and it was important the problem was fixed.