Labour’s wage theft bill gets support from NZ First

Monday, 24 February 2025

Labour MP Camilla Belich is guiding the Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill through Parliament, and it looks like it will make it into law, despite National Party opposition.

Labour MP Camilla Belich’s Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill looks set to become law thanks to support from New Zealand First.

If it makes it into law, the bill would add wage theft to the Crimes Act, and see employers who deliberately steal from workers’ wages face possible theft charges.

National MPs Carl Bates and Grant McCallum sought to cast the bill as an insult to employers in a debate in Parliament on Wednesday last week, with Bates claiming it should be retitled the Crimes (We think all employers are thieves) Amendment Bill.

McCallum suggested it should be called the Crimes (We don’t trust employers) Amendment Bill.

“I’m not sure anyone in this house really wants to call employers thieves,” Bates said.

However, despite National and ACT opposing the bill, New Zealand First’s Casey Costello said her party supported it, provided it was clarified to make clear it only covered employers who intended to commit theft, and had no “reasonable excuse” for their behaviour.

Former Labour MP Ibrahim Omer tells Education and Workforce Select Committee about the scale of wage theft committed by employers against vulnerable workers.

Belich supported Costello’s changes, and rejected Bates’ suggestion that honest employers could be prosecuted if workers were not paid on time because of a bank error.

“This bill covers intentional theft, not mistakes, not mishaps, not people being forgetful; Intentional theft,” Belich said.

And, she said: “I would like to reject the member’s allegation that this is about calling employers thieves, or that there was any suggestion that all employers were involved in this kind of behaviour.”

“We know most employers, the vast majority, are good employers, just like most New Zealanders. But there is a place for the criminal law in New Zealand when crimes are committed.”

National MP Carl Bates felt a law that criminalised theft by employers was not needed.

Bates also claimed there was no data to support the need for the law, and queried how the bill fitted with the Opposition’s “concern about us filling up our prisons with too many prisoners, or filling up, or clogging up our justice system”.

But Costello said: “I have done a lot of work in the labour exploitation area, and recognise the vulnerability of these communities.

“We recognise that just as we have hard-working Kiwi businesses, we have hard-working employees, who on occasion can be victimised because of that power imbalance,” she said.

Bates felt that theft by employers, if it happened at all, would be better dealt with as a personal grievance by workers.

National’s Grant McCallum argued against making theft by employers a criminal offence.

National’s Vanessa Weenick felt it was likely there was so little employer theft going on that those committing it should not face it becoming a crime. It was, she said, a bill looking for a problem to solve, and that there wasn’t a “huge background problem”.

Belich said Bates had been on the select committee when officials from the Ministry of Justice provided evidence of 375 cases of wage arrears handled by Employment Relations Authority in the four years to the end of 2023, and 30 in the first four months of 2024.

She said that showed a significant issue existed with wage arrears.

She also pointed out that the select committee had heard direct testimony from people who had suffered wage theft.

The MP who originally drafted the bill was Ibrahim Omer, who lost his seat in Parliament in the last general election. In his early days as an immigrant to New Zealand, he had suffered twice from wage theft, Belich said.

The entire purpose of the act was that currently there wasn’t a criminal sanction for employees who suffered theft as a result of the actions of their employer.

New Zealand First MP Casey Costello says her party supports the bill, provided it makes clear it only covers employers who intend to commit theft.

She said such provisions would not be new in the law. The Immigration Act criminalised theft by employers from recent migrants, she said.

“Inequitably, in my view, employees who do steal from their employers are referred to police and treated in the criminal law. This bill is merely about addressing that imbalance,” she said.

Bates and McCallum sought to portray the law as putting an administrative burden on employers. They sought to have the starting date for the law delayed so business owners had time to educate themselves on the law.

After the session in Parliament, Belich said: “It was heartening to see support from the majority of the House.”

The bill would have its third reading in a few weeks time, she said. “I am grateful for the support of the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and NZ First.”