Wellington | The Ardern Labour government has announced a radical overhaul of New Zealand’s labour laws, with a policy package that will supercharge the institutional power of unions and place centralised wage bargaining back at the heart of industrial relations law.

The “Fair Pay Agreement” system, announced in Auckland on Friday, is explicitly designed to put a floor under wages by allowing unions to negotiate on an industry-wide basis. If 10 per cent of a workforce or 1000 workers within an industry agree, a new Fair Pay Agreement can be enacted.