Statement attributable to Martin Keogh, Health New Zealand Te Waipounamu Regional Deputy Chief Executive

Today approximately $40.8 million in Holidays Act remediation payments have been processed for 5900 current Southern District staff.

We have made significant progress in the remediation project with around two-thirds of our current Health New Zealand employees now having received the money they are owed.

I want to acknowledge the patience of our staff who have been waiting for their payment and also recognise the huge work from our payroll teams, both nationally and in the regions, who have worked tirelessly on this programme.

The payment today means over 75% of our payrolls nationally have been rectified. This means those payrolls are now compliant with the Act and staff are being paid correctly for their holidays in a nationally consistent way.

Nationally we have 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.

Southern District is the seventeenth payroll nationally to have Holidays Act remediation payments processed to current staff with Auckland, Counties Manukau, Waitematā, Taranaki, Wairarapa, Nelson Marlborough, Hutt Valley, Capital Coast and four former shared services completed, and a partial payment made in Bay of Plenty, Te Tai Tokerau, Hawke’s Bay, South Canterbury.

The payment to Southern District staff takes the total amount paid so far nationally to over $491.1 million across 65,562 current employees.