maternity leave take two

Well after waiting another 20mins on the phone this morning, (this was after being on hold for 20mins on friday and 30 mins on saturday) i finally got through to IRD be told that i needed to ring Department of Labour to find out if i am intitled to maternity leave.

The problem, having changed companies during the year even though they are owned by the same person.

This is starting to get stressful, surely it can't be that damned hard to find out if i am intitled to maternity leave, my damned employer should be doing this but they are just dragging their heels.

What a great start to my day.

My friend gave me this website to look up Parental Leave. I haven't been there yet so i don't know if it would be helpful....but i guess you can give it a go it may be useful. www.ers.dol.govt.nz
Hope it helps

Hi Kazzle, if you have been working for the same company for 6 months by the time you wish to take your maternity leave and you work 20 hours or more per week then you will qualify for maternity leave. I've never qualified but instead I get the parental tax credit which is $1200, not as much as maternity leave but better than nothing.

I get the feeling that i am not going to get paid maternity leave even though i have worked for the same person for just over 3 yrs because i changed jobs mid year last year, new contract, and although it was still with the same person it was under a different company name so i dont think its classed as continous employment.

Oh well might just have to look at the parental tax instead.

It shouldnt be so hard or stressful to go through this. :(

no i would have been 1 month shy of being in this new job...of course i have since changed jobs again with the same person, so its all a bit confusing.

oh well not stressing, what happens happens

its all so confusing,

my 3 job changes are all with the same person but he just owns two different companies.

I have no idea about family assistant or anything and ird hasn't been very helpful, thats if i can get through to them.

Any help would be great

Hi Kazzle, if you have been working in the same company for 6 months then you are covered even if you have changed jobs, and if his companies are linked you would be covered that way too.
I can help you if you want with your entitlements, because I have the paperwork in front of me now or you can try the IRD website. Its www.ird.govt.nz if you click on Family Assistance link & then on the right hand side of the screen it will have links to Family assistance charts, you want the 2007 one. That is for the 1st of April '06 - 31st of March '07 financial year. Then just match your hubby's gross income to the chart & it will tell you what you are entitled to. For example, my fiancee earn's $41k & I have estimated that I earn about $3k (overestimating that), so our combined income for next year will be roughly $44k. With one baby that entitles me to Family support of $74 p/f & $120 In Work Payment p/f. And this will go up when baby no. 2 arrives, plus I will get 4x $300 p/f payments for Parental Tax Credit.
There is also an accomodation supplement but I'm not sure what you would be entitled to, you would need to call WINZ. Hope that helps!

I don't qualify for the in-work payment because I am self employed which is a big rip-off because I pay even more tax than wage earners (GST + PAYE) but thems the breaks. I do get Family Assistance tho, and Family Assistance payments and thresholds are going up significantly on 1 April this year so it's worth checking out (I will be getting around $50 more per week)