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Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987

Remedies available to employees

68: Non-compliance with formal requirements

You could also call this:

“Small mistakes won't stop you from getting parental leave”

If you’re an employee, your employer can’t unfairly stop you from using your parental leave rights or getting parental leave payments, even if you made a small mistake in how you asked for them.

A small mistake, or ‘irregularity’, could be forgetting to do something, doing it at the wrong time, or not doing it quite right. Your employer should still let you have your parental leave benefits.

If there’s a problem, you, your employer, or someone acting for you can ask for help from the Employment Relations Authority or the court.

If you didn’t give notice about your parental leave properly, but you tried your best and what you did was reasonable, the Authority or court will still let you have your parental leave.

For other small mistakes, the Authority or court can help if they think it’s fair. They’ll look at what happened, if everyone was trying to do the right thing, and anything else that’s important.

The Authority or court can fix the mistake, give you more time, confirm you can use your parental leave rights, or help in other ways they think are fair. They might also set some rules about how to fix things.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM121064.

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Part 7 Remedies available to employees

68Non-compliance with formal requirements

  1. An employer must not unreasonably refuse to allow an employee to exercise any rights and benefits in respect of parental leave or a parental leave payment that the employee would be entitled to exercise but for an irregularity.

  2. In this section, irregularity means—

  3. omitting to do something required by or under this Act or under the alternative provision under which the leave is taken; or
    1. doing something required by or under this Act or the alternative provision under which the leave is taken before or after the time when it is required to be done; or
      1. otherwise doing anything irregularly in matter of form.

        1. An employee, employer, or self-employed person, or a person acting on behalf of an employee, employer, or self-employed person, may apply to the Employment Relations Authority or the court for relief in respect of an irregularity.

        2. The Employment Relations Authority or the court must grant relief to an employee in respect of a failure to comply with the notice requirements of this Act or of the alternative provision under which the leave is taken if satisfied that—

        3. the employee's failure to comply with the notice requirements was in good faith; and
          1. the extent to which the employee did or did not comply with the notice requirements was reasonable in all of the circumstances of the case.

            1. The Employment Relations Authority or the court may grant relief in respect of any other irregularity if it thinks it is reasonable to do so, having regard to the nature of the irregularity, the good faith or otherwise of the parties, and any other matters it thinks proper.

            2. The Employment Relations Authority or the court may grant relief—

            3. by amending or waiving the irregularity, extending the time within which anything is to be or may be done, confirming the right of an employee or self-employed person to exercise rights in respect of parental leave or a parental leave payment (as applicable), or granting other relief as is reasonable:
              1. subject to terms, if any, that the Authority or the court, in the circumstances of each case, thinks fit.

                Notes
                • Section 68: substituted, on , by section 17 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave) Amendment Act 2002 (2002 No 7).
                • Section 68(3): substituted, on , by section 18(1) of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Act 2006 (2006 No 20).
                • Section 68(6): substituted, on , by section 18(2) of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Paid Parental Leave for Self-Employed Persons) Amendment Act 2006 (2006 No 20).