Brad Jacobs: Coffee Club Director on the changes to the 2003 Holidays Act

There are still grey areas in the Government's proposed leave legislation. 

The Government's announced a new system to replace the 2003 Holidays Act. 

Coffee Club Director Brad Jacobs told Mike Hosking while some parts still need clarity, the proposal appears to solve many issues. 

He says as long as he's been in New Zealand, the Act has caused problems, and he's concerned by the long timeline ahead. 

Government systems may be slowing down the implementation of the new leave legislation. 

Jacobs told Hosking it will likely be three years before the new system —including an hourly accrual— is used. 

He says massive payroll providers should be able to build these systems faster, and it may be government systems that are the handbrake. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And so the Holidays Act will be changed. It'll be

(00:02):
simpler to implement. Apparently pro write a sick leave driven
by ours, not work days, and ours based a cruel
for and you will leave and if you're on acc
you don't get annually building up anymore. Bred Jacobs is
a coffee club CEO franchise Association chair and as with
us bread morning to.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
You money, Mike, you like what you heard? Yeah, yeah,
we do, Yes, we do. Look. I think everyone has
probably said it in the last twenty four hours, but
this has been a problem for as long as I've
ever been in business in New Zealand twenty odd years.
It can't come soon enough.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
And does it look like it fixes it?

Speaker 2 (00:35):
I think at first glance, yes, everything I've read I like.
I do have one concern. I noticed that the official
Beehive press release didn't talk about the calculation of ordinary
working days and this is around, you know, sort of
public holidays and an alternative day and loo, and none
of the media coverage yesterday seemed to cover it. I

(00:56):
went digging last night and I eventually found two sentences
in an eleven page document from MB and I still
found it very, very, A lot of gray area. So
I'm really hoping that one doesn't get missed because that's
a significant problem in our business with lots of cafes
trading on public holidays and that what is a normal

(01:18):
working day. It's very hard to calculate.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
We'll follow it up and get an answer. The fact
that hasn't been done before. When you talk about twenty years,
why has no one done it?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Good question? Good question, As I say, as long as
I've ever been in business in New Zealand, it's been
talked about as a problem, and it concerns me that
it's still three years away. I hear people referring in
the last day or so to twenty four months, two years.
The reality is this bill doesn't even pass until sometime
next year, and then another twenty four months from there.

(01:48):
So we're looking at the best part of three years
really before we actually.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Exactly and even longer for teachers. Is it the tech thing?
Everyone's explaining the tech we're just so antiquated and old
that whatever adjustments just take.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
For River I heard you say that before, and I
probably can't quite agree on that. I just don't believe
that the resources of the massive payroll providers out there
couldn't build these systems much faster if if they really
wanted to. Perhaps the government systems can't, and maybe they're
the handbrake, but I would have thought it's be the
private businesses, you know, the zeros and the smartlies and

(02:20):
those kind of people. They could build this quicker if
they needed to and wanted to.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Good insight. Bread appreciate it very much. Brad Jacob's Coffee
Club CEO Franchise Association, New Zealand Chip. For more from
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