Attributable to Dr Dale Bramley, Acting Chief Executive Health New Zealand

In great news for current Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora Hawke’s Bay staff, approximately $15.2 million in Holidays Act remediation payments have been processed today.

This is a significant milestone in getting these payments to our staff.

The money is expected to be in the bank accounts of 4,120 eligible staff by tomorrow morning.

Staff receiving payments work across the health system and include nurses, doctors, allied health staff, health care assistants, cleaners and administrators.

We are very pleased for our staff that payments have been processed today and our Hawke’s Bay staff are receiving the money they are owed.

Resolving Holidays Act Remediation payments for these staff has been extremely complex and time-consuming work requiring a large amount of manual processing and specialist skills.

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.

Hawke’s Bay is the eighth payroll nationally to have the payments processed to current staff with Auckland, Counties Manukau, Waitematā and four former shared services (HealthAlliance, Health Partnerships, Health Source and Northern Region Alliance) also completed.

The payment to Hawke’s Bay staff takes the total amount paid so far nationally to over $254 million across 34,300 current employees.

The Commissioner has made a decision that Holidays Act remediation payments need to all be made as quickly as is practical and we are working rapidly to make further payments as soon as possible, with several pending before Christmas.

We aim to complete the Holidays Act remediation payments to all current employees by July 2025. The first payments to former employees will start in early 2025.