Nelson Marlborough Health NZ staff get $20m remediation payment

More than $20 million in Holidays Act remediation payments have been made to Health New Zealand’s staff in Nelson and Marlborough.

Issues relating to the Holidays Act, identified in 2016, found former district health boards were not paying staff correctly.

Health New Zealand deputy chief executive Te Waipounamu, Martin Keogh, says 3029 staff in Nelson Marlborough were collectively owed approximately $20.6 million.

Nurses, doctors, allied health staff, health care assistants, cleaners and administrators were among those affected.

Martin says the process has been complex and time-consuming, requiring a large amount of manual processing.

Nationally, there were about 90,000 current employees plus 130,000 former employees covered by the Holidays Act remediation project, for the period from 1 May 2010 to the present day.

The total amount paid nationally was now over $334.1 million across 45,667 current employees.

Nelson Marlborough is the thirteenth payroll nationally to have the payments processed to current staff with Auckland, Counties Manukau, Waitematā, Hawke's Bay, South Canterbury, Taranaki, Wairarapa and four former shared services completed, and a partial payment made in Bay of Plenty.

Martin says Health NZ aimed to complete the Holidays Act remediation payments to most current employees by July 2025, with all other outstanding payments to be completed this year.

The first payments to former employees were expected to start shortly.