Neil Sands
Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden has acknowledged long-standing concerns about unregulated employment advocates but says her reform agenda is already too busy to act on the issue.
“This is something that I hear about quite consistently. It doesn’t matter which city I’m travelling to, people have concerns about employee advocates,” van Velden told TLANZ’s Burning Issues in Employment Law conference in Auckland on Thursday.
Lay advocates are allowed to carry out the same work as lawyers in the employment jurisdiction, but they don’t have a regulatory framework and there have been several cases where they have acted in an unprofessional or abusive manner.
There are also concerns about the quality of service they provide to clients.
After outlining the government’s workplace reforms at the conference, van Velden was asked about regulating employment advocates but indicated it was not an immediate priority.
“The real answer to this is that I’ve bitten off quite a lot of work in my work program already. I wish I could add even more to the agenda, but out of fear of picking up too much and them all falling over it’s not something I’m progressing with regulating at this time.
“But it is something that my officials are aware of, and it’s something that potentially the next minister could pick up.”
Van Velden also said the so-called “gateway test”, which will apply to contractors when the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (ERAB) is passed, was about giving everyone involved in an employment relationship certainty, rather than denying workers the minimum standards they would receive as employees.
“The gateway test is not to say people can’t be employees. It’s to make it really clear where the delineation between a contractor and employee sits in the law,” she said. “It’s not the case that all people who believe that they’re employees, but are signed up as contractors, will not be able to challenge that. You can still go through the process, but what will be clear is if a certain measure of tests have been met, then that person is likely to be found… as a contractor.”
In an overview of her agenda as minister, van Velden said her aim was to “get the fundamentals right while remaining prepared to adapt to change”.
“In a flexible labour market, employers have a high level of freedom to change their staffing as their business needs change. This could mean more staff, fewer staff or a completely different skills mix. When employers have this freedom, they are more likely to create jobs and to take risk on new hiring or promotions,” she said.
Changes included in ERAB would prevent employees earning more than $180,000 from lodging unfair dismissal claims and would “make it easier to remove poorly performing managers and executives while giving new talent a chance”.
She was hopeful the bill would pass through Parliament in the first quarter of 2026.
Van Velden also detailed her plan for a more risk-based approach to health and safety, which she said will see WorkSafe switch focus to guidance, rather than regulatory enforcement, and reduce the compliance burden on business.
“Critical risks – which are defined as things that may cause death, serious injury or illness – [are] the risks that businesses should be prioritising above all else,” she said, arguing that the changes would let management handle health and safety “so directors and boards can focus on governance and the strategic oversight of their business”.
She also touched on the recent decision to repeal the Holidays Act and replace it with a new Employment Leave Act, which will include hours-based accrual for sickness and annual leave, as well as pro rata sick leave for part-time employees.
“The Holidays Act has become synonymous with complexity, confusion and compliance headaches,” she told the conference. “Virtually every employer I’ve spoken to has found themselves caught out by its calculations or confused.”
Van Velden’s address did not mention pay equity reforms passed under urgency in May, which overhaul the system designed to remedy under-payment in female-dominated occupations.
0 Comments