Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987, ss 2BA, 71CA-71CB

You can get parental leave payments if:

• you’re the primary carer of a child under six, and
• you’ve been an employee, whether with the same employer or not, or been self-employed, for an average of at least 10 hours a week for any 26 of the 52 weeks immediately before your baby’s due date or before your spouse or partner take over care of the child.

You’re also covered if you’ve recently changed jobs, or if you’re a casual or seasonal worker, or if you’ve had several temporary or fixed-term jobs during the 52-week period.

If you qualify for the parental leave payments but not for primary carer’s leave from your job – because for example you’ve recently changed jobs – you can still ask your new employer to allow you to take leave from your job (called “negotiated carer leave”) so you can get the payments (see below).

Note: You’re allowed to resign from your job and still get the parental leave payments, provided you otherwise qualify for them.

Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987, ss 2BA, 71CA-71CB, 71D(1)(b) & (2A)

If you’ve become a primary carer because the birth parent of your child has died or for any other reason, and your child is under one year old and the birth parent hadn’t applied for parental leave, you’re not disqualified from receiving a parental leave payment because you’d taken partner’s leave before becoming a primary carer.

You may be eligible for parental leave payments if you become a primary carer to a child under six through adoption, permanent care through Oranga Tamariki or whāngai. To qualify, you must have worked for an average of 10 hours a week for any 26 of the 52 weeks immediately before you start care of the child. You must give your employer written notice at least 14 days beforehand with a court order, letter from the Ministry of Social Development or a statutory declaration.

Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987, ss 30A-30J

Because the qualifying tests are different, some people who qualify for parental leave payments may not qualify to take primary carer leave from their current employer – for example, if they’ve recently changed jobs. If you’re in one of those situations, you can ask your employer to allow you to take parental leave so you can get the payments – this is called “negotiated carer leave”.

Your request to your employer has to be in writing, and you must make it at least three months before the due date for the birth – or if instead you’re taking over the care of a child under six, then at least two weeks before you start that role.

Your employer has to deal with your request as soon as possible, and not later than one month after you make it. They have to tell you whether they’ve approved or refused your request, and if they refuse they have to give you reasons. There’s a list of available grounds on which they can refuse, including that they can’t reorganise the work among the existing staff, that your leave would affect quality or performance, or that there would be additional costs.

You can’t challenge the employer’s decision if they refuse you. However, you can challenge them if they haven’t responded to you within the time limit or haven’t responded adequately (for example, if they haven’t given you any reasons for refusing). In that case you can contact a labour inspector at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, or go directly to the mediation services provided by MBIE (free phone 0800 20 90 20).

If mediation doesn’t resolve the problem, you can apply to the Employment Relations Authority (see the chapter “Resolving employment problems”). If the Authority agrees that your employer has breached the requirements, it can order them to pay you a penalty of up to $2,000.

Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987, ss 71DA, 71J

You’re entitled to parental leave payments for one continuous period of 26 weeks. (You’ll also qualify for additional weekly payments, up to a maximum of 13 weeks, if your baby is born before 37 weeks into the pregnancy – called “pre-term baby payments”.)

Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987, s 71E

You can transfer some or all of your parental leave payments to your spouse or partner, as long as they also qualify for the payments.

Note: If you’re an employee you must take your parental leave payments while you’re taking parental leave from your job. The payment period begins when you start your parental leave, whether this is primary carer’s leave, partner’s leave, or extended leave.

Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987, s 71I

If you’re an employee you must apply to your employer for parental leave, and then apply to Inland Revenue for the parental leave payments.

If you’re self-employed, you apply to Inland Revenue for the payments.

Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987, ss 71M-71P

The parental leave weekly payment is your ordinary weekly pay or your average weekly income, whichever is more, but only up to a maximum amount. If you have more than one job, the payment is based on your total income. The maximum amount you can get for parental leave payments each week is usually adjusted each year on 1 July.

To find out the current maximum, go to the Employment New Zealand website employment.govt.nz and search “Amount of parental leave payment”.

Note: Parental leave payments are provided by the government, not your employer. The rules for qualifying for the payments are different from the rules for qualifying to take parental leave from your current job (see above, “Taking parental leave from your job: Types of parental leave”).

Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987, ss 71D, 71E, 71L

Your parental leave payments will end before the 26-week leave period is up if you:

• return to work before the end of that period, or
• transfer your entitlement, or some of it, to your spouse or partner (see above).

  Note: Your parental leave payments won’t stop if you resign or stop being self-employed or your fixed term employment agreement ends during your paid leave period.

Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987, s 71CE

You can go back to work briefly for what are called “keeping-in-touch days” while you’re getting the parental leave payments, so long as your employer agrees to this. For example, you may want to keep up with skills development or training. You can do up to a total of 52 hours’ work without this counting as a return to work and without stopping your payments. However, you can’t have any keeping-in-touch days until your child is four weeks old.

Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987, s 4

Your employment agreement can’t change your eligibility for the government’s parental leave payments. However, you can get additional payments if your employment agreement includes better parental leave provisions – for example, your employer may have agreed to top up the payments to the amount of your full pay.

Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987, s 71F

Yes. You can take parental leave and get the payments more than once, so long as it’s been at least six months since you returned to work at the end of the previous parental leave. You must also meet the eligibility requirements each time (see above, “Who qualifies for parental leave payments?”).