Westpac Holidays Act remediation.

The Holidays Act 2003 is complex legislation with varying calculations and entitlements for different leave types. As a result, many New Zealand employers have found it challenging to apply the legislation correctly when calculating entitlements to, and payment for, holiday pay and other forms of leave. 

Westpac has conducted a thorough review of its historic and future payroll process to make sure we are fully compliant with the Holidays Act. As a result of the review, like many public and private organisations across New Zealand, we’ve been impacted by compliance issues and discovered some employees may not have been paid correctly and may have not received their full entitlements under the Holidays Act.

We’ve corrected the payroll system issues, making sure that from 23 February 2023 all Holidays Act entitlements are accurately calculated. We have already remedied any compliance issues with current employees and are now in the process of reaching out to former employees.

To facilitate payment to any former employees that may be impacted by holiday pay compliance issues, we’ll make attempts to contact everyone who is entitled to a remedial payment based on the last known contact details we have, and ask they go through an online registration process on our purpose-built website; the Holidays Act Portal. Once registration is complete and all details confirmed, a payment will be scheduled.

If you have received a communication from us, you will have been asked to complete the online registration on the Westpac Holidays Act Remediation Portal.

Once you have registered on the Portal, your details will be given to our Holidays Act Remediation team for validation. Once validation is complete, a payment will be scheduled. If for any reason we cannot validate your application, we’ll contact you.

Important:

As not every former employee will be entitled to a remedial payment, if you try to register without first receiving a communication from us you won’t be able to log in as we have determined you are not entitled to a remedial payment.

If you believe that you are entitled to a remediation payment but have not received a communication from us, please contact us by sending an email to holidaysact@westpac.co.nz.

Password management:

Your registration and the security of your personal information is important so make sure your password:

• is at least eight characters in length
• contains both uppercase and lowercase characters, and
• contains at least one number (e.g., 0-9).

Do not use:

• easy-to-guess passwords, especially the phrase "password"
• a string of numbers or letters like “1234” or “abcd” or
• your given name, the name of a spouse or partner, or other family name.

It is vital to remember your password without writing it down somewhere, so choose a strong password or passphrase that you will easily remember.

Any personal information you provide us will be treated in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020. The information requested is part of our verification process, and to make sure that if there is a remedial payment owed to you, it is paid to the right person. We cannot make any remedial payment to you without this information.

By supplying your personal information through the Portal, you acknowledge that we may use your personal information for the Holidays Act remediation process, as well as any other remediation process, we may carry out in future remediation payments. We will ask you to reconfirm your personal information if you are owed any future remediation payments.

If you wish to access or request correction of any details you have already provided through the website, contact us by sending an email to holidaysact@westpac.co.nz.

For more information, see the FAQs.