Great Barrier Island care worker Kerris Adlam. Photo / Supplied
By Kate Green of RNZ
Care workers’ unions are taking legal action against Health NZ, with carers in remote areas saying the price of petrol is so high they are losing money visiting their more remote clients.
The Public Service Association (PSA) and E tū have jointly filed an Employment Relations Authority claim against the health agency on the basis that it is illegal for employers to dictate how workers spend their money, yet the agency requires workers to pay for fuel and car maintenance.
The health agency denies carers are their employees, telling RNZ vehicle matters were the responsibility of third-party contracted providers.
Support worker Kerris Adlam lives on Great Barrier Island, where the price of petrol had reached $4.50 a litre, and diesel was not far behind.
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 – basically, anyone who had been allocated care hours by Te Whatu Ora.
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.
“I’ve budgeted myself now $60 a week for diesel, and now it doesn’t cover my costs,” she said.
Right now, Health NZ covered some of the fuel costs – 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.
The health agency funds the trust, which pays the carers.
By Adlam’s maths, she was getting just over 50c per kilometre, which did not come close to covering her costs.
“I jam as many people in as I can,” she said. “And the problem with that is [...] I’m having to lump those care hours together, which means in the long run, their care is kind of unbalanced.
“Some people might need multiple visits during the day, but you just can’t do it, you can’t justify it, because you don’t get paid – you’re paying to have a job.”
She said care workers’ salaries had been low for several years now, and the price of fuel had just widened the gap.
“We’re 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’s place, then you pay them it.”
If not, some carers might start refusing to travel to faraway clients.
“We’re going to start seeing tragedies, we’re going to start seeing people not getting the care they need.”
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.
Nor were trips to take clients to the supermarket or appointments.
“A lot of our clients don’t actually have vehicles,” she said. “We don’t have a public transport system on the island, so unless the care worker is taking them, they don’t get to go.”
While some carers were doing it tough, Young said she would not let it affect their clients.
“If I can’t get more money out of Health New Zealand, I will use our crisis fund, because that’s what it’s there for.”
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.
That could be expanded out, Young said, to take the burden of acting as a taxi off care workers.
The PSA and E tū 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.
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.
According to the court documents, care workers were paid amounts ranging from the minimum wage up to approximately $29.10 an hour.
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’ wages were spent.
“These workers are providing an essential public service, funded by Health NZ,” she said. “They are among the lowest-paid workers in the country and had their pay equity claim cancelled. Yet they are the only publicly-funded workers required to supply and maintain such significant tools of their trade as a car.”
They were seeking a declaration from the ERA that Health NZ had not complied with the Wages Protection Act.
She said Health NZ had the power to lift the mileage rate – which had not changed since 2022 – and it should do so with urgency.
Health NZ acting director for funding, community and mental health Martin Hefford denied that care workers were employees of the health agency.
“In situations where Health New Zealand purchases home and community support services, the workers are employed by the contracted provider, not by Health New Zealand,” he said.
“The use of vehicles, and other employment agreement terms are a matter for the third-party provider that employs the workers.”
He said HNZ’s current funding arrangements recognised cost pressures faced by providers and their workforces, including fuel costs.
“Health New Zealand is currently considering funding settings for 2026/27, including the impact of rising fuel prices on third party providers.”