A senior quarantine officer who was fired after taking a colleague to a friend's house for lunch has been reinstated to his role after the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) found his dismissal unjustified.
The senior officer, with 18 years of service at MPI, was summarily dismissed in October 2025 following two workplace complaints.
But the ERA found that the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) had failed to properly investigate the primary complaint against him, and that dismissal was a disproportionate response to the second.
As a result, it ordered MPI to pay the worker more than $77,000 in compensation and lost wages.
The first of the two workplace complaints faced by the senior officer was brought by a colleague, identified only as AB, who alleged that she was pressured to visit his friend's home for lunch while the pair were conducting inspections at transitional facilities in West Auckland.
AB, who was on her second day on the job, alleged she felt "highly uncomfortable," "uneasy," "gross," and "nervous" and said she had felt unable to decline.
She also alleged the officer made inappropriate and borderline homophobic comments and pressured her not to report his conduct.
The second complaint, from a colleague identified as UX, alleged the officer raised his voice aggressively at him in June 2025 after UX asked him to continue working on the office inbox.
MPI investigated both complaints over several months. In October...
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