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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, December 17th, 2025 - 28 comments
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
Just asking for a friend… What is involved in working out the holiday pay arrears for nurses?
Is it a matter of manually checking every pay slip for overtime and altering the amounts?
Is it a human data entry job?
I ask because here at Mid Central, the work force are still waiting for this to be remedied after several broken promises. Surely more resources (from other pay roll offices around the motu) could be allocated to getting the lob done.
In other areas, former workers are having their issues tidied up.
Well as a former HR/industrial relations person from an employers perspective experienced in both manual and computerised pay roll, with some health sector experience, & former union rep I would say it needs
1) a person dedicated to investigating and fixing – knowledge of the problem ie how have the arrears occurred, knowledge of the systems, various employment contracts, knowledge of the holiday pay systems. I'd go for a former payroll specialist acceptable both to the union and management to give guidance on a process first. Or perhaps seek input from colleagues in other health areas if they are being paid out to seek guidance on the process they used. Union people could contact union people in areas to get guidance.
2 Some contracts that I know of used to work on the basis that people worked 40 hours but you had to work 50 and over before overtime payment plus the loading for holiday was applied. In fact there were people who worked the old PS standard of 37 hours 50mins who had to work 50 hours.
3) I know that Health computerised payrolls have traditionally been a bit of a mess with payroll systems 'wide-boys' being rife in the health sector from many years ago.
4 Most computerised payroll systems SHOULD be able to run a total of hours worked over various periods of time. If not the pay slips will be gold.
5 Most computerised payroll systems SHOULD be able to run a total of hours worked over various periods of time AND test check to see to which periods holiday pay has been applied.
6 the same systems should be able to produce totals of ordinary time paid.
7 When I was working monetising holiday pay was often done semi manually from departmental computer pay runs. We could get yearly totals, deduct any holidays that had been taken then use a formula to calculate the balance HP. We would add these into the pay and the system would calculate the tax etc. This has to be done carefully as if not done carefully it can add in hours and add holiday pay on top of holiday arrears.
8 If extra hours have been paid then pay slips will be a good check on the hours, then a calculation made to assess the HP
9 If the sum of the arrears are known but there is lack of will often said to be a lack of budget by employers then this needs action more in the political sphere.
10 The Department of Labour used to have a group that had an oversight into payroll 'activities' especially where these resulted in under payments. It could be good for a lead person for the nurses to contact DoL to talk about the problem. Actually it should be MoH or the hospital payroll people ie the employers who are working on this problem.
BUT if action is happening in other areas to fix the holiday pay arrears then for it not to be happening in your area just shows a lack of will/caring by the employer but I guess you and yours know that……
Sorry about the scatter gun approach.
For me having been an industrial relations person working for both the employer as a job, and then as a union delegate in other work places it never ceases to amaze me at the attitudes towards unionism by bosses in the health sector. (I swear one of my health sector bosses expected me to be breathing fire and calling everyone out or at least being on the side of unions who were able to call workers out, when he realised I had been in situations in times past where we (as employers) were negotiating with the PSA and the Workers Union over wage worker pay. Absolutely, well almost, unhinged in the attitudes to unions)
Thanks for yr considered response.
All other DHBs (or whatever their moniker is now) apart from Lakes, Mid Central and Whanganui have gotten this sorted.
There is a faint whiff of foot dragging as staff aren't entitled to interest for the 1000s owed. Not all that dissimilar to wage negotiations that are dragging into their second year.
Here is an extract from the Waikato Times about the issue.
https://www.waikatotimes.co.nz/nz-news/360921323/retired-waikato-couple-frustrated-over-pushed-back-deadlines-owed-holiday-pay?cx_testId=4&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=2&utm_source=waikato_times_stuff_home&utm_medium=referral#cxrecs_s
I have to support the person who said that payroll/HR come after you very quickly if by some chance you are overpaid.
I remain cynical about the fact that it requires the most laborious of processes to paid out money owed. I wonder when the clock will tick over* and someone sees/accepts that interest or a meaningful ex gratia payment for interest lost is needed as well.
* I suspect never.
Having worked in the sector I remain agog at the contrast between the expectation of professional care for patients and the lack of professional care for staff and their working conditions
Yep, yr observation about HR/payroll acting quick with over payments is spot on. Heck, there is even a crime of 'theft as a servant'.
This holiday pay clusterf#@k is far worse event.
There was a rule that if you were acting temporarily in a role of 'in charge' – organising staff, priorities etc you didn't get paid for it till you did three shifts in a row. So… the common practice was to be rostered to do two shifts 'in charge', skip one then do two more. The union finally called the management out on this and, I think, the system is now if yr 'in charge' you get the extra allowance for each time it occurs.
“Having worked in the sector I remain agog at the contrast between the expectation of professional care for patients and the lack of professional care for staff and their working conditions”
Nothing like a neo-liberal hospital. The culture can be pretty stink. There is something to be said for award rates.
The utility value of AI seems to have taken a hit. Could be a blip, or an indication that tweaking the function to fit into an operating context is problematic.
Fitting into context is a primary dimension of darwinism. In the deep green view of life, that is facilitated by ecosystemic relations, which take the form of info & energy flows between organism and ecosystem (mediated by resonance). Readers who find this too hard to grasp ought to revert to watching Shortland St. If AI proves continually unable to fit into the user's operating context, it will be discounted as an inadequate tool.
Feels like the new RBNZ governor is going to be very visible and vocal and not shy to step beyond what we've been told is the sole role and mandate of the Reserve bank, and this will make her vulnerable to political pressure from you know who.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/12/15/exclusive-rbnz-boss-mortgage-rate-hikes-risk-dampening-nz-economy/
The bank's only role is to control inflation so comments on retail banks' interest rates is a remarkable departure from that.
Looks like Willis got what she paid for…
Nudge theory has been trendy since early in the millennium, and gets used because it often works well. Relative to the timidity of the user, of course. Those who take the intiative often get traction due to setting the tone of discourse.
Employing political devices is a great way to erode trust in the institution.
You ain't wrong there!
Yet perhaps a sign of the times. I've noticed various reports of mass loss of trust in western nations in recent years. Haven't reported them here due to the general sense of malaise out there which ought to be evident to all perceptive readers (in transit on a trajectory towards common knowledge).
So finance and money in general isn't political or affected by political moves; controlled by some God in the Ramtops ah la Terry Pratchett? FYI https://dwwiki.mooo.com/wiki/Research:Gods
On the topic of credibility, T's suit against the BBC also hinges on that:
Having done a decade as editor in the TVNZ newsroom (from '87) I can assure all that edits are not unintentional. It takes a collective decision (editor & journalist/director/producer, and action to make it technically effective as produce is very intentional!
T thus seems to be on a winner here, yet that is merely the key point in regard to natural justice. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2przgvdyeo
The same edit had been made years earlier. They used old footage for the later documentary.
As neither broadcast was viewed in the USA, DJT has no valid case for reputational harm in a US court.
In the Eighties I attended a NZLP Conference in Christchurch at which Geoffrey Palmer gave a very erudite and interesting speech on the Sunday. I was entranced by it and paid close attention.
So I was dismayed to see that TVNZ had edited coverage of his speech showing me with a bored expression, chin in hand, peering down at the seat in front of me looking most disinterested.
That footage was of me the previous day looking at conference papers spread out on the seat in front of me- it was a tiered seating theatre. I know it was the previous day for the clothing I was wearing were what I wore on Saturday.
The editing was a deliberate statement, by juxtaposition of images spliced into the coverage of Palmer speaking, that he was boring.
So, Dennis Frank, you are right that editing was always deliberate. Was it you?
Not from memory. I went there due to being pissed off that they were using a policy of airing yank coverage of geopolitics that seemed Reaganesque to the point of being blatantly offensive. So I looked real hard for anyone doing it with intent.
A decade later my view was way more sympathetic to the powers that be there. The ethos was genuinely public service (in that sterile habituated neocolonial style of theirs). I agree with your implication that the shot was likely used to cue subliminal evaluation of the elderly gent's impression on the audience. A clever subtle way to do fake news, huh? However the video editor must use a shot if the journo/director/ producer they are working with at the time asks for it to be included.
Hierarchy of command, once a monopoly owned by popes or monarchs, is now somewhat distributed downwards. The shot selection goes to the video editor who crafts the story by default, unless the higher powers intervene.
"Elderly gent"? None of us were elderly 40 years ago…. I was 36! Fake news it was, and forty years later it still rankles. A children's programme frontman of the time told me he did not believe it could have happened.
I have been aware ever since of the power that an editor has just by choosing a photograph to suit his or her point of view, or bias, which we now acknowledge in our modern concept of 'fake news'.
I told the story to a visitor today of being at the leaning Tower of Pisa and taking two photographs which I later used to illustrate the concept of point of view to a maths class. One photo had a classic leaning tower, the other a seemingly perfectly upright structure.
From the "every accusation is a confession" file…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/chloe-swarbrick-a-demagogue-says-david-seymour/premium/MT4NQLVRTZH4HACOJ3PUUMIQJM/
W.H. Auden memorably referred to the 1930s as a “low, dishonest decade”, and it seems we are in another such decade, with useless and pusillanimous politicians on the left and on the right the greed, graft, lies, cruelty, vulgarity and of course outright stupidity megaphoned by a complicit and bovine media.
So it seems, yet we can enjoy the light entertainment it provides…
Very sensible, most readers will think. Whatta guy. To test his credibility, an enterprising reporter could have a bright idea:
"Hey, you know the one about Mossad jumping onto the Arab plot to do the Twin Towers, and taking over the organising role that the Arabs weren't much good at, so as to provide the spectacle to the dancing Israelis on the Jersey foreshore?"
"You bet, but we're not meant to seem to be taking it seriously, right?" Don't spook the horses still rules conventional left/right thought.
The Papatoetoe ward local body election results overturned by a judge amidst what looks like evidence of fraud. I am not saying the 4 brand new councillors who were elected on a ticket are behind any fraud. I will note however that the 4 councillors elected under a cloud of fraud chose a nice ACT yellow colour for their ticket branding
I think you might be drawing an inference that isn’t supported by what we currently know.
What’s actually interesting about the Papatoetoe case isn’t partisan branding or the identity of the candidates, but what the Court has done with the concept of an election being “materially affected”.
A few points make this case historically notable:
What appears to be precedent-setting here is an expanded understanding of “materially affected”. Instead of asking only whether the tainted votes exceeded the winning margin, the Court seems to have asked whether those votes were indicative of wider irregularities in the conduct of the election itself.
Once you take that view, individual invalid votes aren’t assessed in isolation. They become signals of a potentially compromised process. At that point, things like anomalous increases in turnout, clustering of irregularities around a particular voting method, or patterns inconsistent with historical baselines start to matter: even if the raw numbers are small.
If this approach is adopted more widely, it could materially reshape how electoral integrity challenges are assessed in New Zealand, with implications well beyond this single election.
In particular, it raises hard questions about the robustness of our postal voting system and the thresholds courts should apply when confidence in the process itself is at stake.
Thanks for that good example of consideration of the voting irregularity Res P.
Can I point out that they were not Councilors. They were Local Board members. Big difference. Fortunately, their rort has been discovered. I wonder if they will bother putting themselves forward again for the new Election?
pointed out and noted – local board not council
From Merv "I'm that confused" of Manurewa, to claims of fraud in the election of the Papatoetoe Ōtara ACTion Team 'winners' – thanks for the heads-up Georgecom.
Dirty politics is hard yakka, but some 'poor' sorted charlatans have to do it.
Our democracy and our nation for Kiwis to shape.
Pffft. This is how it is for these people in Wellington, notoriously hilly, we know. But that is disregarded, doesn't show up on the plans laid flat! Scoop Wellington lays it out.
https://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=176557 Holloway Road concerns ignored:16 December2025 One comment – This is the 2024 WCC District Plan. Most development and subdivision applications will not be publicly notified going forward. Public notification is specifically precluded by the National Policy Statement – Urban Development. Often the first neighbours will know of developments is when the diggers arrive. And before anyone blames the current government, note that this policy was put in place by Labour and the Greens but National’s going for growth so it’s not going away. Welcome to the future of New Zealand.
How can the chorus debt not be an asset sale
Simply, if someone will pay the government to buy it, it has to be an asset.
If Willis doesn't understand this it's no wonder she can call the debt that's far greater than it was when she crticised the previous government a 'prudent' amount ..
Government pushes ahead with sale of Chorus debt https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/582100/government-pushes-ahead-with-sale-of-chorus-debt
Thinking about economics is Keith Rankin doing some ruminating at Scoop. When is old stuff antique and when is it just interesting but still just talking points or tired brainfarts?
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2512/S00033/fire-fire-todays-vestiges-of-ruthenasia-and-classical-austerity.htm
Simply outstanding Peters – perhaps with the exception of another weak off-colour pun.