>Authority member Rachel Larmer found that the dismissal was “extremely unfair” and that the company “failed to comply with even the most basic and widely understood principles of procedural fairness”.

Every employer in NZ should know there’s a dismissal procedure they have to go through to abide by the law (whether or not it should be the law is another issue). I know it, my plumber knows it, the dog probably knows it, it’s bizarre that Rocket Lab, as a large employer, was incapable of abiding by the most basic employment law.

What Rocket Lab did by offering a settlement could be seen as just an out of court settlement – no problem, but by twisting the former employers arm by making it on the condition that the former employer not bring a wrongful dismissal case, pushed their actions from a simple out of court settlement and towards tampering with the employees legal rights, which is why the Employment Relations Authority was so hard on Rocket Lab, for their actions, not for who they are.

Yet, at the same time, this same New Zealand government has apparently been giving this evil employer routine waivers of its draconian border restrictions imposed to prevent the arrival of COVID.

Mr. Zimmerman gets a couple of things completely wrong here. The exemptions are on the basis of the priorities as to whom gets into the country, there’s a ranking with NZ citizens at the top, we’ve had many tens of thousands of NZ citizens wanting to flee the draconian situations they’ve had to face with Covid and measures against Covid around the would, the border isolation facilities are permanently stretched.
The “waivers” do not get people into the country without going through the two week isolation process as Mr. Zimmerman claims and is mentioned in the article he links to, rather this is a case of these people being promoted above New Zealanders wishing to return home in the queue for isolation facility spots.

In truth, New Zealand’s laws themselves are now simply being enforced somewhat randomly, based merely on whether a specific government official personally likes or dislikes the company. That is my impression at least.

Your impression is wrong, I see no evidence of Rocket Lab being treated any differently to any other large employer that stuffs up their adherence to basic employment law, and the border exemptions for essential workers are being used by numerous companies to get required staff into the country, others granted those exemptions (again not exemptions for two weeks in isolation facilities, just queue jumping) include athletes, entertainers and James Cameron with his actors and film crew.