Health New Zealand has made the first Holidays Act remediation payments to former employees today.

Holidays Act remediation payments totalling $4.7M were processed for 1,029 former employees of Health NZ Taranaki or the former Taranaki District Health Board.

“Making this first payment to our former employees is a significant step forward,” says Chief Financial Officer Bevan McKenzie.

“We are also calling for former employees from Health New Zealand Taranaki (formerly Taranaki DHB) to make sure their registration is complete, as we know that there are around 2,200 former employees who are still owed. Their payments will then be scheduled at a later date.”

Today’s payment follows significant progress in making payments to staff who are still working at Health NZ. Current Health NZ Taranaki staff who were owed holiday pay received remediation in December last year.

Not all employees or former employees are due to receive a payment, as some people were paid correctly.

Health NZ has around 130,000 former employees and 90,000 current employees across 24 payrolls affected by the Holidays Act remediation programme, which covers the period since 1 May 2010.

Payments have been processed at different rates because each former DHB has unique factors affecting the amount owed. Each payroll is remediating current employees first, then former employees.

Health New Zealand is committed to finishing repayments to current staff in the remaining three districts of Midcentral, Lakes and Whanganui early next year.

So far, as well as the 1,029 former employees paid today, current employees on 21 payrolls have received remediation payments. Today’s payment brings the total to $652.4 million paid to current and former staff so far.

We encourage former Health NZ employees who may be owed Holiday Pay to complete their registration through our national portal for former employees, here: Holidays Act Remediation – Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora (external link)

If you are a former Taranaki employee:

  • Make sure you have registered on the former employee portal and completed the ‘Getting Started’ section on the portal.
  • You can access the portal here https://remediate.tewhatuora.govt.nz/hnz (external link), or from the home page of the Health NZ website.
  • If you have trouble registering/logging in, please follow the instructions on the portal. There is also a ‘Forgot your password’ link.

When you receive your email from the remediation team asking for additional personal and banking details, you can provide these via the secure portal. We would never ask you to provide this information by email.