Employment Relations (Employee Remuneration Disclosure) Amendment

An amendment to the Employment Relations Act 2000 (the Act) passed its third reading in Parliament on 20 August 2025 and at the time of writing this, was awaiting Royal assent.  The amendment will come into force the day after it receives Royal assent.

The amendment to the Act provides protection for employees who discuss or disclose their remuneration and intends to “ensure that employees can discuss and disclose their own pay rate to others without detrimental repercussions to their employment”. This change is stated to increase transparency about pay, and allow any pay discrimination to be more easily identified and remedied.

The amendment adds into section 103 of the Act a new ground for a personal grievance: “adverse conduct for a remuneration disclosure reason”. This would allow an employee to raise a complaint against their employer for adverse conduct due to the employee’s disclosure of their remuneration.

Examples of adverse conduct would include an employer dismissing their employee, refusing to give an employee the same terms, conditions, or opportunities as others, or forcing an employee to retire.

The amendment creates new section setting out a two-part test that must be met for a personal grievance to be established under the new ground. There must be:

• “adverse conduct” by the employer

• a “remuneration disclosure reason” for the employer engaging in such conduct.

The Act states that an employer may be found to have engaged in adverse conduct for a remuneration disclosure reason only if the remuneration disclosure reason was a substantial reason for the conduct. A remuneration disclosure reason is presumed to be a substantial reason for the conduct unless the employer proves, on the balance of probabilities, that the reason was not a substantial reason for the conduct.

To avoid doubt, an employer also engages in adverse conduct if the employer or a representative of the employer, in relation to the employee, organises to take any adverse action or threatens to organise or take any adverse action; or requests, instructs, induces, encourages, authorises, or assists another person to engage in adverse conduct because an employee disclosed their remuneration to another person.

Effectively, this change in the Act means an employer can no longer require employees to keep their personal remuneration confidential. However, equally, while enabling employees who wish to share their remuneration information with other, the Act does not require employees to share their remuneration information if asked to do so by a colleague.

This amendment will require employers to ensure that they do not take any adverse action or trying to put limitations on employees sharing their personal remuneration information.