The pattern nobody wants to admit
New Zealand employers are losing dismissal cases at an uncomfortable rate, and the reason is almost always the same. Not because the employees were blameless, but because the employers could not connect their actions to their own policies.
In the past six months, the Employment Relations Authority has handed down reinstatement and compensation orders against the Ministry for Primary Industries, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, Health New Zealand, and Electrix, one of the country’s largest electrical infrastructure firms. A High Court conviction of a major port CEO has added personal liability to the mix. Together, these cases amount to a masterclass in how not to manage people out of an organisation.
18 years of service, dismissed on vibes
The most recent case is the sharpest. Mujahid Khan, a senior quarantine officer with 18 years of service at MPI, was terminated in October 2025 following two complaints. One involved alleged inappropriate comments and pressure on a colleague. The other involved raising his voice at a male co-worker.
MPI concluded Khan had committed serious misconduct, breaching its collective agreement and core values of being “trustworthy, respectful and responsive.” But when the ERA examined the case, Authority member Simon Greening found the “evidential basis and category of serious misconduct, as described in MPI’s policies and relied upon by MPI in concluding Mr Khan’s behaviour amounted to serious misconduct, remains unclear.”
Translation: MPI could not explain which specific policy Khan had breached or why the conduct met its own definition of serious misconduct. Khan was ordered reinstated to his position within seven working days.
Private employers are just as exposed
This is not exclusively a public sector disease. In March, the ERA granted interim reinstatement to Clive Bryham, a field operations manager at Electrix with over 16 years of service. The company alleged he had mishandled an incident involving an illegal connection, exposing it to reputational harm with Vector, a key client.
The problem? Vector had only sent a request to investigate. The ERA found Electrix provided no affidavit from Vector confirming actual harm or loss. Asserting that a client relationship might be damaged is not the same as proving it was. Bryham, 55, with specialised skills and mortgage commitments, was reinstated to actual work.
The financial stakes can be far higher. In 2024, the ERA awarded over $500,000 to a former BNZ employee whose redundancy was found to be retaliatory following a protected disclosure complaint. The breakdown included $105,000 in compensation, nearly $330,000 in lost wages, and $48,000 in lost bonuses. The ERA found the restructuring had no commercial basis and that the decision to disestablish the team only occurred after someone the complainant had raised concerns about became involved in the process.
When consultation is a performance
FENZ managed to turn a 260-page restructure proposal into evidence against itself. The ERA found in March that FENZ breached both collective agreement consultation obligations and the statutory duty of good faith during a restructure affecting approximately 700 positions. Unions received the consultation document under embargo just 24 hours before it went to all employees.
PSA National Secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said the organisation “worked up a sweeping restructure in secret for months then gave unions 24 hours’ notice” before releasing it during the NZPFU annual conference. The level of detail in the document actually worked against FENZ. A 260-page proposal signals decisions were already made before consultation began.
Personal liability is no longer theoretical
The Gibson v Maritime NZ case takes the stakes higher still. The High Court convicted POAL CEO Anthony Gibson of failing to exercise due diligence under the Health and Safety at Work Act following a worker’s death in 2020. Gibson was fined $130,000 plus $60,000 in costs. The court found that officers must “obtain credible information and follow up and challenge the information they are given where necessary.” Safety observations were being recorded without surfacing real non-compliance on night shift. Gibson knew of the risks and had the capacity to influence conduct.
This was the first time a senior executive of a large, complex organisation was held personally liable under the 2015 Act in this way. The comfortable distinction between governance and operations does not hold when it comes to health and safety.
Squeezed from both directions
All of this is unfolding against fiscal tightening. The Government Workforce Policy Statement released in November 2024 noted total public sector personnel expenditure of $36 billion in 2023 and directed agencies to settle within baselines and make productivity gains. Meanwhile, the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill, approved for introduction in February 2026, signals the government wants to reduce compliance burden on small businesses.
But for larger organisations, the due diligence standard has been clarified upward, not relaxed. Public and private sector employers alike face a pincer movement: cut costs, but get your process right or pay more than you saved.
The bar is low and employers still trip over it
The ERA is not asking for perfection. It is asking employers to explain, in writing, why a specific act of conduct meets the specific definition of serious misconduct in their own policies. That is a low bar. MPI, FENZ, Health NZ, Electrix, and BNZ all failed to clear it. For business owners watching these cases pile up, the lesson is brutally simple: if you cannot show your working, do not press the button.
Sources
- Khan v Chief Executive of MPI [2026] NZERA 316 (2026-05-22)
- Bryham v Electrix Limited (Omexom NZ) [2026] NZERA 147 (2026-03-11)
- Gibson v Maritime New Zealand [2026] NZHC 813 (2026-03-31)
- ERA finds FENZ breached good faith and consultation obligations in major restructure (2026-03-18)
- Whistleblown Away: A Costly Lesson for Employers in Protected Disclosures
- Government Workforce Policy Statement on Public Sector Employment Relations 2024 (2024-11-06)