The New Zealand Employment Tribunal: A Review and Assessment *

Beyond its more controversial bargaining and contracting provisions, New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act 1991 incorporated procedures for the resolution of rights disputes centred in an Employment Tribunal, newly established by the Act as a ‘low‐level, informal, specialist’ body to provide ‘speedy, fair, and just resolution of differences between parties to employment contracts’. This paper assesses the performance of the tribunal and finds that it has gained broad acceptance. Nonetheless, parties to tribunal proceedings continue to encounter some delays and are experiencing increasing costs and formality. The paper examines the reasons for these problems.