New Zealand Legislation: Acts
Acts are laws made by Parliament
(1) Any person may make a complaint to the Director-General concerning a contravention by any person of any provision of this Part of this Act.
(2) When the Director-General receives any complaint alleging contravention of this Part of this Act, the following provisions shall apply:
(a) Where—
(i) The contravention allegedly occurred in any workplace; and
(ii) The person who is the subject of the complaint is the employer for that workplace, or an employee or volunteer of that employer; and
(iii) The complaint was not referred to the Director-General by the employer under subsection (6) of section 15 of this Act,—
the complaint shall be forwarded by the Director-General to the employer to be dealt with under that section:
(b) In all other cases, the matter shall be dealt with as though it were a complaint to which subsection (3) of this section applied.
(3) On receipt by the Director-General of a complaint under this Part of this Act, a person appointed under section 14 of this Act may make further inquiries by way of investigation in respect of the complaint.
(4) The person who investigates the complaint may take no further action if the complaint is trivial, frivolous, vexatious, or not made in good faith, or if, during the investigation, the person receives a satisfactory assurance that there will be no repetition of the cause for the complaint; and in any such case the person who made the complaint shall be advised of the reasons why no further action is being taken.
(5) The person investigating the complaint may, on investigation, try to settle the cause of the complaint and obtain a satisfactory assurance against repetition of the cause of the complaint.
(6) Where no such settlement and assurance can be obtained, or if the cause of complaint is in breach of a previously given assurance, a complaint may be laid under the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 in respect of the relevant offence.
Subsections (1) to (3) were amended, as from 1 July 1993, by section 32 Health Reforms (Transitional Provisions) 1993 (1993 No 23) by substituting the words “the Director-General”
for the words “the area health board”
in each case.
Subsection (2)(a)(ii) was amended, as from 11 December 2003, by section 11 Smoke-free Environments Amendment Act 2003 (2003 No 127) by inserting the words “or volunteer”
after the word “employee”
.
Subsection (2)(a)(iii) was amended, as from 29 July 1997, by section 4 Smoke-free Environments Amendment Act 1997 (1997 No 32) by substituting the word “Director-General”
for the word “board”
.