The Employment Relations (Employee Remuneration Disclosure) Amendment Act 2025 came into force on 27 August 2025. This resulted in amendments to the Employment Relations Act 2000 to protect the ability of employees to discuss and disclose their pay if they decide to do so, and to allow employees to have these discussions if there is a 'pay secrecy' clause in their employment agreement.
Purpose of the changes
These changes arose in the context of pay equity and how the lack of pay transparency can perpetuate ethnic, gender, and disability pay gaps, and to bring New Zealand in line with other countries including Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
The purpose of the Amendment Act is to promote pay transparency and fairness by ensuring that employees have the ability to discuss their remuneration with their coworkers. With these changes, employees can discuss their remuneration with others, ask their colleagues about their remuneration or participate in those discussions, noting that there is no requirement for an employee to disclose those details. Under the Amendment Act, remuneration may include:
- Salary or wages (including payment for overtime and penal rates)
- Allowances
- Productivity-based, bonus, or incentive payments (including commission)
- Any employer contribution to a superannuation scheme for the benefit of the employee, or
- Any other type of payment for work.
There is also a specific carve out so that any payment or other benefit received by the employee as an owner of the business is not classified as remuneration. We do not anticipate that this carve out will apply to many situations.
Supporting the changes – personal grievance for adverse conduct based on remuneration disclosure
Another change to the Employment Relations Act 2000 is intended to bolster the effectiveness of the remuneration disclosure regime. Specifically, there is a new ground to raise a personal grievance. Now, employees may raise a personal grievance if their employer has, in relation to that employee, engaged in adverse conduct for a remuneration disclosure reason.
The Amendment Act records that adverse conduct for a remuneration disclosure reason includes:
- Dismissing an employee
- Refusing or omitting to offer or afford to the employee the same terms of employment, conditions, benefits or opportunities made to other employees in substantially similar circumstances
- Subjecting the employee to any detriment where other employees in work of that description would not be subjected to such detriment, or
- Retiring the employee or forcing the employee to retire or resign.
If the remuneration disclosure was a substantial reason for the adverse conduct that has occurred, and the employer cannot prove otherwise, then an employer will be found to have engaged in adverse conduct for a remuneration disclosure reason.
Implications
Though the adverse conduct provisions only apply to adverse conduct following 27 August 2025 (even if the discussion occurs before this date), employment agreements that already include 'pay secrecy' clauses are impacted by this change.
Employers should be aware that if a pay secrecy clause was entered into before the amendments came into effect, it will no longer be enforceable so employers cannot rely on the clause. Additionally, even if there is a general confidentiality clause, it cannot be relied on to prevent employees from discussing their remuneration.
Other changes
This is the latest employment relations change enacted, with more changes to come in line with the Government's announcements over the past year. We will continue to update you on the changing employment landscape, so that both employers and employees can stay up to date on how these developments may affect their workplace. You can read about the other proposed changes here.
For more information and advice about managing the recent changes and those ahead, please contact a member of our employment team.
Co-authored by Gianna Menzies (solicitor).
