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NZ Herald
07-08-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
Call for Government to help Auckland as unemployment rises
There was a real case for serious policy or fiscal stimulus around New Zealand, and particularly in the big cities, in order to 'get things going'. 'I think we need to raise the animal spirits, if you like, of the business community.' Bridges said a boost in confidence in Auckland was needed at both business and consumer levels. Things were tough in the city which hadn't caught a break since before the Covid-19 pandemic started, he said. 'There is more stimulus, there is more policy work that government could be doing to provide a better business environment in Auckland in the here and now,' he said. 'I think [the Government has] done some worthy long-term things, but in the end, if all we worry about is the long term, I'm not sure there'll be that many Kiwis left in Auckland. 'It's now that they need to be focused on.' Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA) head of advocacy Alan McDonald said while the agriculture industry was bolstering employment elsewhere, Auckland had different economic drivers. 'Numbers from the Auckland Council Economic Unit indicated unemployment would be quite high [in the June quarter] and it has been for some time. 'There are some signs of recovery but they're being led by the regional economy and primary sector and Auckland is more about manufacturing and services. 'Hospitality, tourism, education sectors have all been down as well.' McDonald said EMA had received a spike in calls to its advice line about redundancies and restructures since March. 'We had hoped 5.1 [in December 2024] might be the bottom of Auckland's unemployment numbers, but we've been hearing from March until now that things are still very tight and very tough.' But things were starting to turn, he said. The Stats NZ quarterly labour market figures released on Wednesday also showed unemployment was more than double the national rate at 12.1%. -RNZ
NZ Herald
04-08-2025
- Health
- NZ Herald
Navigating sick leave: How to get a medical certificate in NZ
Part-time and fulltime employees are entitled to 10 days' sick leave for themselves or to look after someone who's sick, but in some circumstances, employers may ask for proof. Who can issue you a medical certificate if you need one? Photo / Getty Images The Holidays Act states an employer may require an employee to produce proof of sickness or injury for sick leave if the sickness or injury that gave rise to the leave is for a period of three or more consecutive calendar days, and a proof of sickness or injury may include a certificate from a health practitioner. The employer could ask for proof within three consecutive calendar days, but they would have to pay the employee's expenses in obtaining the proof. E tū union national secretary Rachel Mackintosh said while it was legal for employers to ask for a sick note, they urged employers to waive the requirement. 'This is the employers' right but it causes hardship to workers who either can't get a GP appointment or have to pay high consultation fees to GPs, including online doctor practices. 'Employers don't have to ask for medical certificates and we would encourage them to drop the requirement unless there is some doubt in their minds about the genuineness of the illness.' Paul Jarvie, manager of employment relations and safety at the Employers and Manufacturers Association, said there could be an imbalance in the medical certificate process. 'One is the employment system, and the second one would be the medical system. Ideally they should work in tandem, but sometimes they appear to be working at odds with each other. The doctor can only hear the employees version of what's going on and there's no real ability for the doctor or whoever it is to contact the employer to find out their story of can the person come back to work, are there alternative duties that kind of stuff. So there's always been a bit of a disconnect.' Where do you get a certificate? General practitioners The most common way to obtain a sick note is to go through a general practitioner. For enrolled patients, depending on the GP, the cost for an appointment can range from $18 to $90. However, with a GP shortage, it can take weeks to get a GP appointment. An RNZ-Reid Research poll found about 60% of respondents were able to get a GP appointment within a week, 30% were waiting for more than two weeks with 17% waiting three or more. Telehealth services Virtual healthcare businesses and some GP services offer online medical certificates. Patients can often get an on-the-day video call or phone call and receive a medical certificate for three to five days. An appointment generally costs around $40 to $65. However, buyer beware: a quick search by RNZ found overseas companies marketing sick notes for New Zealanders and asking for personal information including IDs in its application process. The Ministry of Health said only health practitioners registered with a New Zealand authority can issue valid sick notes. Pharmacies Pharmacists are legally allowed to write sick notes. However, not all do. For pharmacists who confirm they are able to provide a medical certificate, an in-person consultation is required and costs between $30 to $40. It is best to call the pharmacy before your visit to confirm that they can write sick notes. Who else can issue sick notes? Ministry of Health says a health practitioner is defined under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 as a person who is, or is deemed to be, registered with a New Zealand authority as a practitioner of a particular health profession. A list of professions regulated under the Act and their responsible authorities can be found on the Ministry of Health website. The list contains 18 professions with a range that includes from Chinese medicine services to dietetics, nursing, osteopathy to psychotherapy. It is important to differentiate medical certificate and proof of sickness, while only medical practitioners, doctors, can write medical certificates, all health practitioners can certify proof of sickness. Can Healthline provide sick notes? Healthline is a free over-the-phone health service available 24/7 and connects the caller to nurses and paramedics. But the service does not issue sick certificates. In an email, a spokesperson said: 'That's because the Healthline service involved nurses and paramedics providing triage (assessing symptoms, providing health and treatment advice, developing a plan for next steps for care), not diagnosis. 'And to be able to issue a medical certificate would mean being able to verify that someone was unable to work for at least 3 days, which most of the time would require some form of medical diagnosis, which is not part of the service we offer.' - RNZ
Otago Daily Times
03-08-2025
- Health
- Otago Daily Times
Getting a medical certificate without a doctor
Employers can legally ask you for a medical certificate if you need to take sick leave - even for one day. It can be a long wait to see a GP, but there are other ways to get a sick note. Winter coughs and flu are still doing the rounds - and Covid hasn't gone away - so if you need to call in sick there are a few things to know. When do you need a medical certificate? Part time and full-time employees are entitled to 10 days sick leave for themselves or to look after someone who is sick, but in some circumstances, employers may ask for a proof. The Holidays Act states an employer may require an employee to produce proof of sickness or injury for sick leave if the sickness or injury that gave rise to the leave is for a period of three or more consecutive calendar days, and a proof of sickness or injury may include a certificate from a health practitioner. The employer could ask for proof within three consecutive calendar days, but they would have to pay the employee's expenses in obtaining the proof. E tū union national secretary Rachel Mackintosh said while it was legal for employers to ask for a sick note, they urged employers to waive the requirement. "This is the employers' right but it causes hardship to workers who either can't get a GP appointment or have to pay high consultation fees to GPs, including online doctor practices. "Employers don't have to ask for medical certificates and we would encourage them to drop the requirement unless there is some doubt in their minds about the genuineness of the illness." Paul Jarvie, manager of employment relations and safety at the Employers and Manufacturers Association, said there could be an imbalance in the medical certificate process. "One is the employment system, and the second one would be the medical system. Ideally they should work in tandem, but sometimes they appear to be working at odds with each other. The doctor can only hear the employees version of what's going on and there's no real ability for the doctor or whoever it is to contact the employer to find out their story of can the person come back to work, are there alternative duties that kind of stuff. So there's always been a bit of a disconnect." Where do you get a certificate? General practitioners The most common way to obtain a sick note is to go through a general practitioner. For enrolled patients, depending on the GP, the cost for an appointment can range from $18 to $90. However, with a GP shortage it can take weeks to get an appointment. An RNZ-Reid Research poll found about 60% of respondents were able to get a GP appointment within a week, 30% were waiting for more than two weeks with 17% waiting three or more. Telehealth services Virtual healthcare businesses and some GP services offer online medical certificates. Patients can often get an on the day video call or phone call and receive a medical certificate for three to five days. An appointment generally costs around $40 to $65. However, buyer beware: a quick search by RNZ found overseas companies marketing sick notes for New Zealanders and asking for personal information including IDs in its application process. The Ministry of Health said only health practitioners registered with a New Zealand authority can issue valid sick notes. Pharmacies Pharmacists are legally allowed to write sick notes. However, not all do. For pharmacists who confirm they are able to provide a medical certificate, an in-person consultation is required and costs between $30 to $40. It is best to call the pharmacy before your visit to confirm that they can write sick notes. Who else can issue sick notes? The Ministry of Health says a health practitioner is defined under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 as a person who is, or is deemed to be, registered with a New Zealand authority as a practitioner of a particular health profession. A list of professions regulated under the Act and their responsible authorities can be found on the ministry's website. The list contains 18 professions with a range that includes from Chinese medicine services to dietetics, nursing, osteopathy to psychotherapy. It is important to differentiate medical certificate and proof of sickness, while only medical practitioners, doctors, can write medical certificates, all health practitioners can certify proof of sickness. Can Healthline provide sick notes? Healthline is a free over-the-phone health service available 24/7 and connects the caller to nurses and paramedics. But the service does not issue medical certificates. In an email, a spokesperson said: "That's because the Healthline service involved nurses and paramedics providing triage (assessing symptoms, providing health and treatment advice, developing a plan for next steps for care), not diagnosis. "And to be able to issue a medical certificate would mean being able to verify that someone was unable to work for at least 3 days, which most of the time would require some form of medical diagnosis, which is not part of the service we offer."
Otago Daily Times
31-07-2025
- Otago Daily Times
'Out of date' machinery laws under review
By Phil Pennington of RNZ A timber worker is having to relearn how to play the guitar and trumpet - and how to write - after losing two fingers in a machine without a guard. His passion, music, is now bittersweet, he says. A 37-year-old man is dead; seven months into a packing job, asphyxiated after he fell onto a fast-moving conveyor belt. The belt lacked a guard. Graham McKean of the Maritime Union counselled the man's workmates at the factory just days later. "They were distraught," he said. "It was horrific, I just, the feeling in the air, the hair on the back of my neck, the chill that ran down my spine. "Simply because the proper guard had not been put in place." Then there is Ethyn McTier, dead at 23, crushed in an unguarded conveyor belt. These are cases brought to public attention in recent months, where machinery safety failings were only penalised or fixed after the fact. An engineer who gives expert evidence in courts and to inquests after workers are killed or hurt is angry. "Expert witness work mostly makes me angry," Dr Joe Bain said. "Because time after time, after time, we wind up writing reports that highlight that somebody's been seriously injured, if not killed, by a known problem, where there is an existing solution ... that simply hasn't been applied." In eight years giving such testimony, he has yet to come across a tragedy that could not have been averted. It's mostly not malice, he said, but businesses not knowing what "good looks like". But could it be that now a solution to New Zealand's poor and dangerous record with machinery is in sight? The government thinks so. Workplace Safety Minister Brooke van Velden has launched a quickfire consultation with factories aiming to simplify rules around keeping machines safe - to make what "good" looks like clear. "The Health and Safety in Employment 1995 Regulations for machine guarding are out-of-date, incomplete and very prescriptive, requiring very specific protection for woodworking and abrasive grinding machinery," she said in a statement on Thursday. "The review will consult on simplifying these out-of-date rules" and guidance, she said. Make that a "major" rewrite, said the Employers and Manufacturers Association. The EMA joined with ACC last year to come up with a harm reduction plan. "No funding was provided for the implementation of this plan," said ACC, which instead has been seeking companies with good ideas about what to do. ACC, like Worksafe, faces financial strictures limiting or cutting its programmes. That could be financially wrong-footed, when manufacturing injuries are costing ACC $165 million a year and mounting. Business Canterbury's Leeann Watson senses a breakthrough after years of frustration - she and the EMA are among those puzzling over why work on machine safety started then stopped - buoyed by van Velden fronting 100 of her members last year, an unusual move by a minister she believes. "There is no business that I know of that is not wanting to keep their people safe," Watson said. "They just want good clarity and good consistency." Yet the 1995 regulations to be simplified say very little about machine guards; by contrast, the guidance and existing standards amount to over 1000 pages. Yet it leaves out "the useful bit", Bain said. What is that? Simple European standards, complete with pictures, called Type Cs, that show how to keep most of the most commonly used machines safe - "all the work has been done". Bain (who declared his involvement with the Labour Party) told van Velden about Type Cs at her roadshow on overall work safety reform in Napier last year. "I've told her. "Anybody who knows me is sick of hearing me talk about Type C standards" - he wrote about them in Safeguard magazine in January - "Pretty much, they nod their heads and go, 'Yeah, that makes sense'. "Whether it's come through as clearly from other contributors to the roadshows, I don't know." As it turns out, not so much. An initial summary of roadshow submissions alluded to it. But a summary out on Wednesday of all the submissions - including written ones covering over a thousand people - left it out. This later summary only mentions machinery and guards once. It is, in fact, seven pages shorter than the 46-page summary that covers only the roadshow. Mike Cosman is nervous at what the minister is saying. "Yesterday it was scaffolding. Today it's guarding and the messaging seems to be the same, which is lowering standards, which means making it cheaper." The consultant, a veteran of previous government workplace safety reviews, helped submit to the roadshow on behalf of a thousand members of the Institute of Safety Management. "The approach that we take is already risk based. It's all based on the concept of doing what's reasonably practicable in the circumstances. "And anything that undermines that fundamental approach, which has been around now for 50 years, I think is dangerous." At the same time, he acknowledged the way the rules should be implemented needed to be clearer. The Maritime Union's Graham McKean voiced similar worries. Bain was clear on the problem and the solution. "Generally speaking, that's not as a result of malice," he said of harm to workers, "it's as a result of businesses not having enough information made available to them. Not having a clear idea of what good looks like." Import Type Cs tomorrow and give them to businesses for free, was his message to the government. There is no sign of that happening. "There are many standards referenced across the health and safety at work regulations; it is not standard practice for government to pay for accessing these," van Velden said.
Otago Daily Times
07-07-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Covid inquiry: Future vaccine mandates 'won't work'
By Lucy Xia of RNZ Business leaders from Auckland and Northland have spoken about profound impacts on small to medium businesses coping with public health restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic. The comments were made at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the government's response to Covid-19, with one leader saying they didn't think vaccine mandates would work in the future. The legal challenges for businesses to implement the mandates, and the enduring financial repercussions that are still felt today, were among some of the issues raised. These are the first public hearings of the inquiry's second phase, which was called for by the coalition government last year. The hearings concentrate on the impact of the extended lockdown in Auckland and Northland in 2021, vaccine mandates and safety, and the effects of public health measures on social division, isolation, health, education and business activity. Auckland was in lockdown for 17 weeks, and Northland and parts of Waikato for 12, after community transmission of the Delta strain in August 2021. Auckland's Heart of the City's chief executive Viv Beck said the pandemic was the "perfect storm" for CBD businesses, with the loss of tourists, international students, large events, and leaving many working from home. This left businesses dealing with the "eye of the storm" - particularly for the 1300 consumer facing businesses facing a 95% drop in sales during the level four lockdowns, she said. Beck cited data from banks which also showed a 38% drop in spending at CBD businesses during alert level two, and a 19% drop under alert level 1 restrictions. She said many were still trading below pre-Covid levels as of today. Wage subsidies at the time had helped, but didn't cover businesses' operating costs and rent, she said. The Employers and Manufacturers Association's (EMA) employment relations and safety manager, Paul Jarvie, told the inquiry that vaccine mandates had created legal challenges for businesses. "You've got conditions of employment, running in parallel to that you got the Bill of Rights, so people to have the right to say yes or no to treatment, and treatment includes injections. Those businesses that were mandated to have vaccines, that immediately creates employment law issues, if someone doesn't get mandated [sic] what do you do with them?" he said. When asked by the chairperson of the inquiry, Grant Illingworth, KC, whether employment legislation during the pandemic was adequate, Jarvie said it was "fit for purpose" at the time, but added that it would be helpful if there was a caveat under the employment law which allowed for certain public health measures under exceptional circumstances. Jarvie and Beck told the commissioners that if there was another similar event, they hoped businesses could be involved from the very beginning. Beck said while she had liaised with central government agencies from February 2020, she pointed out that being given information was different from being able to participate in decision-making. "We got to a point where we were actually getting asked about a decision about to be made, often at the last minute, but that's the point - if it happens from the start, businesses have to be a trusted voice in decision-making." A manager from the National Field Days Society also in her evidence spoke of feeling the events industry was not being listened to by decision-makers during the pandemic. Head of customer and strategic engagement Taryn Storey said they had spoken to government agencies multiple times about how they could host field days safely, but felt ignored. She said they were willing to integrate vaccine passports into its ticketing system, and thought their venue was well equipped to support the pandemic response. However, Storey said multiple visits by decision-makers to their venue - including by district health officials - had led nowhere. While they felt they had weathered the pandemic, the impacts were "exceptionally profound" and they're still financially trying to claw their way back, she said. Vaccine mandates 'not an option' in the future Representatives from Northland's Chamber of Commerce said in their evidence today that a community-based approach would have worked better hard-handed vaccine mandates in persuading people to get vaccinated. President Tim Robinson said rather than the "authoritarian" mandate path, he felt it would have been more effective to engage with Whānau Ora providers to talk to Northland communities and businesses about the vaccine. "Anybody that I dealt with or worked with during that whole period, said look, I got a much better chance of convincing somebody that the vaccination's a good idea, if there's no threat attached to it," he said. Robinson said the mandates made businesses feel that they were not trusted. When asked by commissioner Anthony Hill whether vaccine mandates would ever be a valid tool in future events from a business perspective, Robinson said no.
