Kia ora Erika Whittome,
 
On behalf of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment I
acknowledge your email of 15/12/2025 requesting, under the Official
Information Act 1982, the following:
 
This is a request for information to the Employment Relations Authority
which comes under MBIE.

To the chair of the Employment Relations Authority:
1. Please share any reviews, memos, comments and correspondence on the
following three cases at the Authority
District Court: Department of Labour v Idea Services Ltd (A copy is here
https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlo...)
and
Employment Court: IDEA Services Ltd v Wills, [2025] NZEmpC 28 (2025)
(https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlo...)
and
Employment Court: CSN v Royal District Nursing Service NZ Ltd 2022 NZEmpC
123
https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlo...

In particular the following excerpts from these cases:
Department of Labour v Idea Services Ltd CRN08020500068 2008,
[73] It can hardly be a practicable step demanded of an employer to
protect the safety of an employee to require a blood test that the
employer has no authority to enforce by either insisting that the test be
carried out or by restricting or removing employment if there is a refusal
by the employee to do so. All that can be done is to strongly recommend
such screening and as I have found the Defendant did so on many occasions.

[74] My findings on this issue are sufficient to determine the result of
this prosecution. However, the Informant also postulated that when the
Defendant discovered that Ms ... was not immune the Defendant should have
provided Ms... with a course of Hepatitis B vaccinations and tested her
post vaccination immune status. The same criticism that I have already
made of the Defendant’s lack of authority to insist on blood screening
applies with even greater force to the issue of vaccination and post
vaccination testing.

IDEA Services Ltd v Wills [2025] NZEmpC 28
[33]... the Order did not mandate termination of her employment and did
not prevent her from performing work outside of the office.

CSN v Royal District Nursing Service NZ Ltd 2022 NZEmpC 123
[44] At the same time, sch 3 relevantly provided that both doses of
Pfizer/BioNTech needed to be received before the person involved would
become “an affected person”, and thus be covered by the Vaccinations
Order.

2. Please share the 'conflict of interest' statement for ERA member
Natasha Szeto given she was counsel for the case of Department of Labour v
Idea Services Ltd and given she has made determinations in the ERA on
testing and vaccination in workplaces.
 
We will endeavour to respond to your request as soon as possible, and no
later than 3/02/2026, being 20 working days after the day your request
was received. If we are unable to respond to your request by then, we will
notify you of an extension of that timeframe. Please note that the days
from 25 December 2025 to 15 January 2026 (inclusive) are defined as
non-working days in the Act and are not counted in the calculation for the
response due date. This will affect the time period for responding to your
request. If you have any enquiries regarding your request feel free to
contact us via email to [1][MBIE request email].
 
Nāku noa, nā
Ministerial Services
Strategy and Assurance
Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment
15 Stout Street, Wellington 6011 |  P O Box 1473 Wellington 6140

References

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1. mailto:[MBIE request email]

Kia ora 

 

Please find attached MBIE's response to your information request. 

 

 

Ngā mihi nui,

 

Dongrui Pang

SENIOR ADVISOR MINISTERIAL SERVICES

Group Business & Ministerial Services, Office for the Deputy Secretary

Te Whakatairanga Service Delivery

Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment

[1][email address] | 04 8965320

15 Stout Street, Wellington 6011 | PO Box 1473, Wellington 6140 

 

References

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1. mailto:[email address]