Tuesday, 3 March 2026
Description
Attend and earn 1 CPD hour
* This interactive online recording includes questions and quizzes requiring critical thinking about the topics, so you have no annual limits to the number of points/hours you can claim with this format of learning. Please verify with your CPD rules
Learning objectives:
- Understand recent and proposed employment law reforms affecting employee and contractor terminations in New Zealand
- Examine how changes to dismissal remedies, salary thresholds and holiday entitlement calculations impact legal risk and workplace decision-making
Employment Law is Changing: What do You Need to Know When Terminating an Employee?
The government has recently announced substantial changes to employment law, including a complete overhaul of Holidays Act. Discuss the key changes being made and what you need to do to prepare for the changes.
- The new “gateway test” and the impact this may have when terminating a contractor agreement
- The “salary threshold” and the impact this may have when terminating senior employees
- The changes to remedies available for unjustified dismissal claims and how this changes our risk analysis
- The changes to calculation of holiday entitlements on termination
Presented by Kirsti Laird, Special Counsel, Wynn Williams
Chair
Kathryn Dalziel, Barrister Sole; Adjunct Professor of Practice Law Faculty, University of Canterbury
Presenters
Kathryn Dalziel, Barrister
Kathryn is a senior barrister practising in employment and privacy law as well as civil litigation and professional ethics. Kathryn researches and teaches in Employment Law and Legal Ethics for the University of Canterbury School of Law and regularly presents at conferences and seminars in privacy, employment, and legal ethics. Kathryn is a member of the Employment Law Bulletin editorial committee. She has co-authored the chapters on Employment Law and Health Information in Health Care and the Law (5th ed), co-authored Ethics, Professional Responsibility and the Lawyer (3rd Ed), and authored the Privacy Law Chapter in Human Rights Law – Westlaw NZ (online).
Kirsti Laird, Special Counsel, Wynn Williams
As a special counsel in our employment team, Kirsti has over 20 years of experience advising on all aspects of employment law. She regularly advises both employers and employees in relation to all aspects of employment relationships, including performance and conduct issues, personal grievances and other disputes, restructuring, whistleblowing and human rights, restraints of trade and negotiated exits. Building upon her many years in practice in the UK, Kirsti has specialist experience in privacy law and the employment aspects of corporate transactions, including the transfer of vulnerable employees. Kirsti’s clients value her strategic and practical advice designed to find solutions to problems that arise in workplaces.
