Employment Relations (Termination of Employment by Agreement) Amendment Bill
This bill lets employers offer a worker a payout to end their job by mutual agreement. The worker can accept or decline. If they accept and sign a written agreement, they give up the right to take a personal grievance claim against the employer. The employer must tell the worker to get independent advice first and give them time to do so. Conversations held during these negotiations cannot later be used as evidence in an employment dispute, with a few exceptions.
What this affects
Tap a topic to see how this bill touches it — with the parts of the text it’s based on.
Employers can formally offer workers a sum of money to leave their job by agreement, and workers can accept or walk away without it counting against either side.
An offer made by an employer to an employee for the purpose of reaching an agreement to terminate the employment relationship… does not in itself constitute grounds for a personal grievance.
Evidence of pre-termination negotiations under section 101A is inadmissible in any proceeding before the Authority.
Progress through Parliament
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Submissions open once a bill reaches the select committee stage. In the meantime, you can write to your local MP about it.
Write to your MPBill text sourced from legislation.govt.nz (Parliamentary Counsel Office). Arapono’s summary and breakdown are drafted with AI grounded in that official text and reviewed by an Arapono editor for accuracy and neutrality before publishing. Arapono is non-partisan and takes no position on this bill.