{"id":348197,"date":"2026-03-26T04:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T04:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/348197\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T04:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T04:00:08","slug":"college-of-midwives-wins-in-10-year-court-battle-over-pay-and-conditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/348197\/","title":{"rendered":"College of Midwives wins in 10-year court battle over pay and conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

It also said the Crown did not act in good faith in its dealings with the college.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe history leading up to this proceeding in fact indicates a rather cavalier approach by the Crown \u2013 entering into agreements to avoid legal liability and then choosing not to, or failing to, meet its obligations under those agreements,” Justice Cheryl Gwyn said in her decision released today.<\/p>\n

Justice Gwyn also found that from as far back as 2007, and continuing up to the present, the method of paying self-employed midwives<\/a>, mainly women, unlawfully discriminated against them on the grounds of sex.<\/p>\n

This was a breach of their rights under Section 19 of the Bill of Rights Act 1990, she said.<\/p>\n

The class action alleged the Crown breached its obligations to ensure the self-employed midwives received \u201cfair and reasonable\u201d pay and working conditions.<\/p>\n

The structure under which LMC midwives are paid is set out under legislation which allows the Government to unilaterally set terms and conditions for how they work.<\/p>\n

The midwives complained this meant they had no right to negotiate their pay and working conditions, including the amount of work they were expected to do.<\/p>\n

Midwives were also expected to fund their business costs from the money paid to them but, unlike other self-employed workers, could not set their fees to cover their overheads or take into account annual and sick leave.<\/p>\n

The College of Midwives first took legal action against the Ministry of Health in 2015, alleging gender-based discrimination under the Bill of Rights Act.<\/p>\n

Before the case could be heard, the ministry offered mediation, which the midwives accepted.<\/p>\n

After a series of mediation meetings in 2016 and 2017, the College of Midwives agreed to withdraw its judicial review proceedings.<\/p>\n

However, it returned to the courts after alleging that the Ministry of Health breached two settlements of agreement on a new funding model, in 2017 and 2018.<\/p>\n

College of Midwives chief executive Alison Eddy said the High Court decision was \u201cwelcome confirmation\u201d that the community-based midwives \u201chave not been valued and have been discriminated against by successive Governments\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a win for midwives but ultimately for the women, babies, wh\u0101nau and communities at the heart of LMCs\u2019 work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Health Te Whatu Ora said that it would appeal the High Court decision.<\/p>\n

More to come…<\/p>\n

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME\u2019s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke\u2019s Bay. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It also said the Crown did not act in good faith in its dealings with the college. \u201cThe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[33323,95,5837,6928,12784,8278,1349,266,78,6712,150768,111,43,139,69,1118,1523,2744,165,1865,8982,6202,102],"class_list":["post-348197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-10year","tag-and","tag-battle","tag-celebrating","tag-college","tag-conditions","tag-court","tag-government","tag-in","tag-legal","tag-midwives","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-over","tag-pay","tag-their","tag-today","tag-victory","tag-wins","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}