{"id":356613,"date":"2026-03-31T09:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/356613\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T09:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:42:07","slug":"care-workers-unions-take-health-nz-to-court-over-travel-costs-as-petrol-prices-soar-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/356613\/","title":{"rendered":"Care workers\u2019 unions take Health NZ to court over travel costs as petrol prices soar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Support worker Kerris Adlam lives on Great Barrier Island, where the price of petrol<\/a> had reached $4.50 a litre, and diesel was not far behind.<\/p>\n

She works for Aotea Family Support Group, a charitable trust whose clients range from the injured or elderly, to those with mental health issues, to those needing palliative care \u2013 basically, anyone who had been allocated care hours by Te Whatu Ora.<\/p>\n

Unable to afford the travel costs, Adlam told RNZ she had recently pared back her hours to three days a week, and was now driving a total of 164km, seeing three to four patients a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve budgeted myself now $60 a week for diesel, and now it doesn\u2019t cover my costs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Right now, Health NZ covered some of the fuel costs \u2013 namely, travel between clients. But it did not cover the cost of getting to that first client or getting home again, or taking the client to the supermarket or appointments.<\/p>\n

The health agency funds the trust, which pays the carers.<\/p>\n

By Adlam\u2019s maths, she was getting just over 50c per kilometre, which did not come close to covering her costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI jam as many people in as I can,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd the problem with that is […] I\u2019m having to lump those care hours together, which means in the long run, their care is kind of unbalanced.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people might need multiple visits during the day, but you just can\u2019t do it, you can\u2019t justify it, because you don\u2019t get paid \u2013 you\u2019re paying to have a job.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said care workers\u2019 salaries had been low for several years now, and the price of fuel had just widened the gap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not asking for a massive pay raise, we just want to be paid fairly. Which is, if it costs that much to go to someone\u2019s place, then you pay them it.\u201d<\/p>\n

If not, some carers might start refusing to travel to faraway clients.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to start seeing tragedies, we\u2019re going to start seeing people not getting the care they need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aotea Family Support Group general manager Angeline Young said that mileage to travel between clients was covered, but trips to the first client of the day and home from the last were not.<\/p>\n

Nor were trips to take clients to the supermarket or appointments.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of our clients don\u2019t actually have vehicles,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a public transport system on the island, so unless the care worker is taking them, they don\u2019t get to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

While some carers were doing it tough, Young said she would not let it affect their clients.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can\u2019t get more money out of Health New Zealand, I will use our crisis fund, because that\u2019s what it\u2019s there for.\u201d<\/p>\n

The charity had recently trialled a shuttle service for seniors to travel from the end of the island to the middle, using a small amount of one-off funding, which had been successful.<\/p>\n

That could be expanded out, Young said, to take the burden of acting as a taxi off care workers.<\/p>\n

Unions take legal action on basis of Wages Protection Act<\/p>\n

The PSA and E t\u016b were seeking a declaration from the Employment Relations Authority that Health NZ had not complied with the Wages Protection Act, affecting about 23,000 home support workers.<\/p>\n

They were arguing that since HNZ was the funder of all home support workers, it was, in a legal sense, the controlling third party and therefore in breach of the section which said employers were not entitled to impose any requirement on any workers about how wages were spent.<\/p>\n

According to the court documents, care workers were paid amounts ranging from the minimum wage up to approximately $29.10 an hour.<\/p>\n

\"PSAPSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons. Photo \/ RNZ, Samuel Rillstone<\/p>\n

PSA national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said that by forcing workers to fund their own vehicle costs and accepting a mileage allowance that had not been increased in four years, the health agency was effectively dictating how workers\u2019 wages were spent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese workers are providing an essential public service, funded by Health NZ,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are among the lowest-paid workers in the country and had their pay equity<\/a> claim cancelled. Yet they are the only publicly-funded workers required to supply and maintain such significant tools of their trade as a car.\u201d<\/p>\n

They were seeking a declaration from the ERA that Health NZ had not complied with the Wages Protection Act.<\/p>\n

She said Health NZ had the power to lift the mileage rate \u2013 which had not changed since 2022 \u2013 and it should do so with urgency.<\/p>\n

HNZ denies care workers are their employees, puts onus back on providers<\/p>\n

Health NZ acting director for funding, community and mental health Martin Hefford denied that care workers were employees of the health agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn situations where Health New Zealand purchases home and community support services, the workers are employed by the contracted provider, not by Health New Zealand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe use of vehicles, and other employment agreement terms are a matter for the third-party provider that employs the workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said HNZ\u2019s current funding arrangements recognised cost pressures faced by providers and their workforces, including fuel costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cHealth New Zealand is currently considering funding settings for 2026\/27, including the impact of rising fuel prices on third party providers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Support worker Kerris Adlam lives on Great Barrier Island, where the price of petrol had reached $4.50 a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[806,536,802,1349,2518,134,2517,111,43,139,69,1523,22126,12937,26213,199,61,274,19062,4478],"class_list":["post-356613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-as","tag-care","tag-costs","tag-court","tag-green","tag-health","tag-kate","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-petrol","tag-prices","tag-soar","tag-take","tag-to","tag-travel","tag-unions","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356613","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=356613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}