Equal Pay Amendment Bill

I move, That the Equal Pay Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill.

I am honoured to be speaking to the first reading of this significant bill, which makes history for women’s pay, a mere 125 years since women gained the right to vote in New Zealand. The bill amends the Equal Pay Act 1972 to expressly provide for a pay equity regime that allows parties to negotiate pay equity settlements. This bill is a vital step in addressing decades of discrimination, which has led to lower pay in many female-dominated industries, despite having similar working conditions and skill requirements to comparable male-dominated industries. This Government believes that a pay equity regime must be just and accessible. I believe that not only will this bill benefit women whose work has been subject to gender discrimination but it also has the potential to benefit their families and future generations of women.

I would firstly like to acknowledge the tremendous work of Kristine Bartlett, who, together with her union, E tū, brought the landmark Terranova case, which resulted in the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Act 2017. That case demonstrated that the Equal Pay Act 1972 applied not only to cases of equal pay, which is the same pay for the same work, but also to pay equity, which is the same pay for work of equal value. The courage and perseverance of Kristine and her union resulted in a settlement to address gender-based undervaluation in the aged-care sector. They made legal history and breathed new life into a statute that was thought moribund.

I would like to acknowledge the work of the Joint Working Group—and the reconvened joint working group—on Pay Equity Principles. The joint working group was formed in 2015 to recommend principles to the Government for the implementation of a pay equity regime in response to the Terranova case. The previous Government decided it would be better for these principles to be decided by a broad-based group of workers, employers, and experts than to be left to the courts to decide. It was the right thing to do, and they deserve credit for making that call. The joint working group recommended a process for making a pay equity claim within the existing bargaining framework of the Employment Relations Act 2000. By using New Zealand’s existing bargaining framework, we will permit employers and workers to negotiate in good faith and to have access to mediation and resolution services.

By making court action a last resort, we will lower the bar for initiating a pay equity claim. We believe good-faith bargaining offers the best opportunity to build productive relationships through a collaborative process. Pushing parties into an adversarial court process in the first instance is not a way to build good employment relationships. Having started well by convening the joint working group, the previous Government stumbled when they introduced the Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill in 2017, which set unnecessary hurdles for employees making pay equity claims, including a high threshold for claimants to meet in order to raise a claim. They also ignored the joint working group’s recommendation to amend the existing Equal Pay Act 1972 and instead created a whole new Act.

This Government is committed to a fairer deal for women. We withdrew the previous Government’s bill and reconvened the joint working group in December 2017 to make further recommendations on determining the merit of a claim as a pay equity claim, how to select appropriate comparators when assessing the work that is subject to a pay equity claim, and the legislative vehicle. The reconvened joint working group recommended lowering the threshold for a claim and to make no changes to the principles on comparators, effectively determining that the hierarchy of comparators in the previous Government’s bill was unnecessary. It also recommended that these principles be implemented by amending the Equal Pay Act 1972.

The coalition Government accepted the recommendations of the reconvened Joint Working Group on Pay Equity Principles, and we have been working to amend the Equal Pay Act in a way that expressly provides for a just and accessible pay equity regime within this important piece of legislation. This bill aims to keep the equal pay and unlawful discrimination provisions from the Equal Pay Act as intact as possible and only makes minimal workability changes to these provisions. The intention is not to change existing rights, and we would welcome feedback on this in the select committee process.

In terms of pay equity, the bill uses the existing Employment Relations Act 2000 bargaining process as a framework for parties to address pay equity issues, provides employees with the right to raise a pay equity claim with their employers in the first instance, and provides access to dispute resolution services such as mediation and facilitation if parties cannot agree at any stage of the process. The bill moves away from forcing parties directly to the courts and instead puts negotiation at the forefront of the pay equity regime.

Litigation can be costly, time-consuming, and can create a barrier that may discourage employees from raising a claim. This bill uses our existing employment bargaining framework to enable parties to come to a settlement that provides for pay equity while still retaining the right of recourse to the Employment Relations Authority or courts through the dispute resolution process. For an employee to raise a pay equity claim with their employer, they no longer have to prove that their claim has merit. Instead, they simply have to show that their claim is arguable as a pay equity claim. A pay equity claim is arguable if the claim relates to work that is predominantly performed by female employees and it is arguable that the work is currently undervalued or has been historically undervalued.

If an employer decides that the pay equity claim is arguable, parties must proceed to bargaining. However, the bill is clear that although an employer may agree a claim is arguable, this does not mean that there is a pay equity issue or that there will be a pay equity settlement. Pay equity bargaining must ordinarily involve an assessment of the nature and remuneration of the work and of comparable work and must be undertaken free from assumptions based on gender. During the bargaining process, the work is assessed against the work of appropriate comparators. Appropriate comparators include work performed by male-dominated comparators that involves the same or substantially some of the work; work performed by male-dominated comparators that involves the same or substantially similar skills and experience, responsibilities, working conditions, or degrees of effort; or any other comparator that the parties or the authority consider useful and relevant.

The previous Government’s bill included a hierarchy of comparators that mandated which comparator groups employees had to refer to first. Claimants had to first consider comparators within their organisation before being able to consider comparator groups within their own industry or sector. This made the process more onerous for employees and set hoops for them to jump through. We believe in making this process as easy as possible for employers and employees to manage. Under this bill, there is no mandated group of comparators that employers and employees must use first. Instead, they are free from the outset to refer to whichever comparators best fit their claim. During bargaining, parties can agree to whatever terms and conditions they wish. However, they can apply to the authority for determination on matters that they cannot agree on.

In bargaining, parties are free to discuss and reach agreement on back-pay as part of their pay equity bargaining. If back-pay is considered and parties are unable to agree, the dispute resolution process is available. At the end of the process, the authority or the court will be able to make a determination on back-pay. Let me be clear about this point: this bill does not create the right to claim back-pay. That right has existed ever since the courts determined that the Equal Pay Act applies to pay equity claims.

The way in which back-pay will be determined by the authority or court for pay equity under this legislation is different from the process for determining arrears for equal pay. This reflects that pay equity is the result of systemic, gender-based undervaluation of female-dominated jobs. This is something that cannot be directly attributed to the actions of a single employer. However, increasing awareness about pay equity issues puts employers on notice about the possibility of pay equity issues within their workforce and creates a responsibility for employers to take action to address it. The treatment of back-pay for pay equity claims therefore balances the structural origins of pay equity with the responsibility of employers to address pay equity issues.

Under the bill, in the first five years after the law is passed, which is when we expect most pay equity claims to be settled, back-pay is available back to the date the claim was raised with the employer. This gives employers a chance to investigate whether there is a pay equity issue. After that point, back-pay can be awarded back to the five-year anniversary of the legislation coming into force, which in some cases may be an earlier date than the date the claim was raised to incentivise employers to look at and address pay equity issues earlier. The authority and courts are also able to exercise discretion in awarding back-pay, and the bill sets out factors that they must take into account. These factors allow the authority to look at the circumstances of each claim and to tailor its approach accordingly.

This bill is the next step in the great march of history towards a more equal and more just society. It will have significant benefits for all of society, and I’d like to thank our coalition and confidence and supply partners for working with us on this bill. In particular, I would like to thank the Minister for Women for working with me on this important work. It is an honour to commend this bill to the House.

I am delighted to be speaking on this legislation in the House today. At the outset, can I just agree with a number of things that the previous speaker, Iain Lees-Galloway, has said. Firstly, though, can I start by acknowledging Kristine Bartlett—what an extraordinary New Zealander, and she did not act alone. She had the fight, the courage, and the perseverance of a whole lot of other New Zealanders in what led to what was a very historic $2 billion pay equity settlement under the previous Government.

But I think it is important that we do look through the lens of history here, because, in the words of the current Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, this is about justice and access to justice, and it actually is OK—in a year when we’re celebrating 125 years of women winning the right to vote, being the first country in the world—that we actually say we need to do a lot more. We have had some progress, and I think if you look at some of the measures that we judge ourselves by, there has been some progress. In fact, if you look at 1998 to 2018, we saw the gender pay gap go from about 16 percent to 9 percent. We are not proud of that; we want to do better, and that is what this legislation is about. But it is also a time to say things are heading in the right direction, and this legislation is, hopefully, a major game-changer for the thousands of women in particular out there that are not earning what they should—equal pay for equal work—and that is what this legislation is about.

I think it is time, as well, that we do acknowledge the working group. The Rt Hon Dame Patsy Reddy did a fantastic job. On this side of the House, National would say we would’ve hoped to have been here earlier. We do acknowledge the work of the working group, but we do believe that we are 12 months behind, in part—Denise Lee had a fantastic piece of legislation, and we’ve got a couple of amendments here, but we could’ve been going a lot faster on this piece of work, given that there has been really good cross-party agreement around changing the law. Again, this Government did spend that 12 months putting it back to the joint working group.

But just again, coming back to the main provisions in the bill, I mean, ultimately, we need to acknowledge as a country that in certain professions—and, you know, I’m involved in education, but every single day I meet teachers and support staff, predominantly in a female-dominated profession, for which, if you look at comparable sectors, the reality is they have not been valued as much as other men doing complex roles like, at times, being principals and teachers. And that’s what this bill is about.

Now, ultimately, if you believe in that goal—and everybody in this House does; that’s why we’re here, and we’ve got cross-party agreement—then the question is, what is the best policy and legislative machinery to be able to deliver that? As I’ve said before, I think there is a lot of agreement, but some of the core differences between the bill that my colleague Denise Lee put up versus this bill do relate, for instance, to the hierarchy of comparatives. And again, that was very clearly set out in previous legislation that National put up, and there is a difference in this legislation.

Again, if you look at the issue of back-pay, it is important—and the Minister has acknowledged the fact that back-pay is not new and the six-year provision actually is consistent with the Equal Pay Act. That is part of this bill and I look forward to being a member of the select committee and looking at these issues of back-pay. The reality is, there are people out there that are owed—and it will be shown—huge sums of money, because the reality is they have been undervalued for many years.

It has been a privilege to meet people like Kristine Bartlett and to understand the huge impact on people’s lives, not just financially but also at a self-worth level, of not being valued properly and having this discrimination. Again, it is very timely that we are doing this in the year that we’re celebrating women having the right to vote, 125 years on.

I think the other big provision that we will be talking about at select committee on this side of the House is this issue of the criteria—of which we had previously used the term “merit” and now that has been changed to be “arguable”. And again, this is a delicate balance, because everybody in this House wants justice and wants that access to justice, but what we will be focused on is ensuring that we have legislation that doesn’t create a situation whereby we have a whole lot of claims coming through that may not end up being of merit. Because that’s in nobody’s best interest that people’s time is wasted because potentially the system is clogged up with claims that aren’t of merit. So it is a delicate balance there and, again, the Government has chosen to change that term to “arguable”, and we will be asking significant questions about what is “arguable”, because, arguably, almost anything can be arguable. So we do want to hear from submitters around that particular provision, because I think it is really important because, again, if we want the most amount of effort on those claims that are of merit then we won’t be clogging up the system with other claims.

The other thing I want to acknowledge in the legislation is the fact that there has been a shortened time frame to give the employer to respond to the claim: from 90 days to 65 days. Again, on the face of it, that might seem like it’s quicker access to justice, but some of these claims are very complex and we need to acknowledge that. So that’s something else that we will be testing out in select committee—is that time period enough?

Then, I think, if we again step back and look at the bigger picture here, and we remind those people that are watching that there is cross-party agreement to put this legislation in. Again, it’s going to come back to the process. We think this issue of the hierarchy of comparators was the right approach. That has been changed by the Government, and we’re going to be very interested to see how that actually plays out in practical terms. As a former Minister of the previous Government, the reality is, you can imagine that you can get tied up with some claims that may not necessarily have merit, and that’s what we will be focused on.

Look, I think the other sort of bigger picture here is that we cannot have equity, we cannot have equality of opportunity, and we cannot have equal pay and equal pay for equal work in this country if we just think of this legislation alone. It will not just be a fair and practicable legislative process that will turn around historic discrimination. We also need to, at a leadership level, all speak to those business leaders, those community leaders, and also those parts of Government that may not have valued particular sectors high enough. I think that would be my plea: it’s not just about the legislation; it’s also about a cultural shift as a country that needs to occur.

That’s why I am proud of some of the things that we did in the previous Government. We were focused on greater flexible working, which is very important because it is about valuing a diverse group of people. We were focused on ensuring that we get more women into areas like science and technology, which is crucial—again, whether it’s the digital technologies curriculum. There are other things in Government alongside this legislation that we have to be doing to ensure that every young child, whether they are a boy or a girl or LGBTIQ or of different ethnicities, has the same equal opportunities, and that does not just involve this legislation. Again, I do want to acknowledge areas like the police force that have tried to be way more progressive in the last few years. The police have set a target of 50 percent of police recruits to be women by 2021.

So I’m very pleased to be standing in this House to be a member of the select committee to be considering these thorny issues that will, in my view, lead to thousands more people, who have been historically discriminated and undervalued, to be properly recognised and rewarded for their efforts. For some people it will be life changing. We saw that with Kristine Bartlett, and all of the people that ended up getting significant pay increases as a result of that. And that is what we are all hanging out for in this House: to be able to give that equality of opportunity and to be able to ensure that those people are properly recognised. But we must do more as a society, both culturally and also fiscally.

Fakaalofa atu Fakatonu, Fono Taane.

[Greetings, Mr Speaker.]

I am proud to speak here on the Equal Pay Amendment Bill as the Acting Minister for Women. I am here because our Minister for Women, the Hon Julie Anne Genter, is on maternity leave, so I think it’s a great reason to be speaking today. I, like the Minister, want to acknowledge the work that she has done on this bill.

Ensuring that women are paid fairly is a key objective of this Government and of the Minister for Women and the ministry. The work that women in female-dominated industries do has long been undervalued, because it’s work that women do. It is administrative work and jobs involving people working with people: teachers, nurses, and support staff in those industries. It’s all underpaid because it’s predominantly women who have been doing those jobs.

The gender pay gap this year is 9.2 percent, which means that on average women are paid 9.2 percent less per hour than men for an hour’s work. That gender pay gap has certainly reduced since Statistics New Zealand started measuring it in 1998 when it was 16.3 percent, but it has been coming down too slowly, particularly in the last decade. Some companies, though, are making good progress. I was really pleased to see Air New Zealand in its sustainability report out today—that company has a gender pay gap of 0.41 percent, and the chief executive, Christopher Luxon, says that the company is continuing to drive a deeper understanding of the unconscious bias. So there I agree with the Hon Nikki Kaye—it’s that cultural change that we need to make as well, looking at gender bias, looking at what this does.

Of course we know that the gender pay gap is far worse for Māori women, Pasifika women, women with disabilities, and trans women. So these multiple intersecting barriers must be addressed. It’s in the Green Party’s confidence and supply agreement with Labour that we have got a commitment to eliminate the gender pay gap within the core public sector and to make substantial progress on that within this parliamentary term. This legislation that we are introducing today is part of that. It’s part of this Government’s objective to ensuring that New Zealand women are paid fairly.

But as others have said, it’s not just this bill that’s going to do it. To eliminate the gender pay gap, we need to do more, have more employers do as Air New Zealand is doing to measure the pay data of their employees, to understand the gender pay gap in their company, and to understand those unconscious bias issues. We need to normalise flexible working hours for both women and men, and we need more accessible and more affordable childcare. But we really need this bill, because it’s enshrining the principle that men and women should receive the same pay for doing jobs that are different, but of equal value, which require similar degrees of skill, responsibility, and effort. Enacting this pay equity legislation will help strengthen our economy in the longer term, because it will be valuing people and the work that they do—women—which has traditionally been undervalued, and it will improve the well-being of women and girls, because those people often on low pay will be spending money in their communities, so we all benefit.

There’ve been 63,000 working people who’ve now had a pay equity settlement or offer, and that’s all because of the work that they and unions have done in winning their cases. The Terranova case that Kristine Bartlett was the public face of—that Court of Appeal decision—was a landmark. It recognised that where it had been previously assumed that the Equal Pay Act gave protection against direct pay discrimination where a female staff member was paid less than a male staff member for doing the same job—that Terranova case opened up the possibility of a large number of pay equity claims in historically undervalued female-dominated industries such as, obviously, the aged-care sector.

So what this bill does is it amends the Equal Pay Act 1972 to expressly provide processes that will allow parties to negotiate pay equity settlements. Certainly, the previous Government did introduce legislation, but it was a very complex process that relied on court cases and was full of barriers to claimants. This bill is a vast improvement on that. And can I congratulate and acknowledge the huge amount of work done by both the Joint Working Group on Pay Equity Principles and the reconvened joint working group, and the contribution they have made as a tripartite forum for unions, for businesses, and for Government to discuss just how a pay equity process might work.

There were three key issues that went back to the reconvened joint working group: how high the bar should be for filing a pay equity claim, what comparators should be used, and what legislative vehicle was appropriate. So this Government, the Labour - New Zealand First - Green Government, agrees with the findings of the reconvened joint working group, because it provides for a pay equity claim to proceed if it is arguable rather than requiring that merit be proved, which was a much higher threshold in the previous Government’s legislation. The whole hierarchy of comparators was very contentious in the previous legislation. The reconvened working group looked at that, and, again, we agree with their recommendation that the comparators should be considered as part of a bundle rather than as a hierarchy.

So this legislation is much more straightforward, because it relies on using the existing bargaining framework. It encourages employers and workers to negotiate in good faith, with access to mediation and resolution services. The court process is still available, but it’s not the first option, as was the case under the previous legislation. It’s the process of bargaining rather than the court process, which is where those first conversations take place. Good-faith bargaining is the opportunity to build productive relationships through collaborative processes, and pushing parties into an adversarial court process, making that the default setting, would have been a way of undermining good employment relationships, so the bill is a significant improvement here.

Certainly, this whole issue of back-pay is really important, because parties will be free to discuss back-pay as part of the bargaining negotiations for pay equity. And they may also come to an agreement outside of the courts on their own which may include back-pay. But if they can’t agree, then the court is available to award back-pay for pay equity claims. This Government, though—can I make that very clear—has not introduced the concept of back-pay. It already existed in the current law. And in the bill, there’s a process to guide the court’s consideration of whether to award back-pay and what quantum should be awarded. So we haven’t done what the previous Government did and limited back-pay for existing claims. In fact, the way in which the bill deals with back-pay should provide an incentive for employers and workers to actually get on and deal with this.

Why is back-pay there? The undervaluing of women’s work has come about because of long-term structural discrimination that has suppressed the market rate in those occupations that are dominated by women. It’s been a societal failing, not just the failing of one single employer, so the settlements must strike a balance between looking at that historic structural discrimination and ensuring that women have a right to back-pay. So we do expect that the provisions in the bill will provide an incentive to resolve claims quickly and fairly, because the bill allows an increasing amount of back-pay after five years.

I’m very proud of this bill and the fact that the Government has worked really hard to introduce it, that we have the historic achievement of women winning the right to vote in Aotearoa New Zealand 125 years ago and now this bill being introduced on Suffrage Day in September and going now to select committee. I really look forward to the public making their submissions to improve the legislation if it can be improved and it being reported back and progressing through the Parliament. It is a significant piece of legislation, and I commend it to the House.

I’m very pleased to stand and speak in this first reading of the Equal Pay Amendment Bill and say that the National Party will be supporting this legislation in the first reading and on its way to select committee. I do have to just put on record that this is the third attempt in a less number of years: firstly, with the legislation that was proposed by the Hon Michael Woodhouse, and then a very similar bill proposed by Denise Lee as a member’s bill. So I have to express, at the outset, some frustration in the delays. When the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety spoke, he did refer to the joint working group that was set up by the previous National Government, and, in effect, the work was continued with the joint working group mark 2, if you like. I think it’s really important, because the work that was started in 2015 really was quite historic in terms of having the tripartite group of Government, unions, and business working very closely together to come up with agreed principles. And I want to come back to that shortly.

I do want to say, though, that legislation of this type—and as I say, this is the third attempt at it—is a step towards achieving pay equity, and that is a significant contribution to reducing even further the gender pay gap. This has been a focus of the previous Government as well as the current Government. That is an area we absolutely agree on. So we have a gender pay gap currently of 9.2 percent. The more it goes downwards, the better. This will not solve all of the problems of the gender pay gap, but it will provide a significant next step.

The other sorts of things that do make a difference, because women’s participation in the workforce is growing at 65.9 percent—absolutely fantastic to see the participation rate that high, but we’ve absolutely got to make sure that structural barriers to them performing well and being adequately rewarded for their efforts are also removed. As my colleague the Hon Nikki Kaye said, it is far broader than just legislation. So for those who are listening to this debate, the bad news is that legislation of this type, although it’s important, is still only a small part of the broader issues that affect women’s participation and their ability to fully and equally participate in the workforce. So I just wanted to make sure that was on record.

Some of the practical things that have been done in our time in office are very simple things like the right of every worker to request flexible work. I will just put in a plea for the Government to ensure that any further industrial relations changes make sure that the gains for women and participating in the workplace are not eroded and there are no unintended consequences for women in those employment relations changes. Another part—again, it sounds quite simple, but the ability to have keeping-in-touch days while women and men are on paid parental leave. Just the very ability to stay connected to their workforce has shown really great results in being able to stay connected and ease their return to the workplace.

I do want to talk though, as others in this debate on Equal Pay Amendment Bill have spoken, about the equal pay settlement: the $2 billion pay equity settlement for aged-care workers. I don’t think there would be anyone in New Zealand that would have disagreed with the fact that aged-care workers were absolutely not getting paid what they were worth, so the accolades have been flowing today for Kristine Bartlett and those that supported her—her union. The one thing I do want to say, though, is that that was an incredibly long and arduous process. So what we do want to see through the select committee process is I’m really hopeful that we will have the ability to pass legislation that means no one else, no other woman, will have to go through the type of battle that Kristine Bartlett did. But that $2 billion that came into effect on 1 July last year raised the incomes of 55,000 women—55,000 women benefited from that settlement. For some of them, that was a pay increase of 15 percent. For others, it was up to 50 percent.

So when I expressed earlier in my contribution my frustration at the delay in passing legislation around pay equity—that’s 18 months that women of New Zealand have not had the opportunity to be paid what they are worth. Every one of those days in the last 18 months, whether they got a 15 percent increase or a 50 percent pay increase, that would have made an enormous difference for them, for their families, and for their communities. So I just have to put on record that I accept that an incoming Government didn’t agree with everything in the previous legislation, but the reality is that when you compare it there’s actually not a lot different. There’s not a lot different. So there would have been ways to ensure that working women of New Zealand didn’t have to wait as long as they have. Unfortunately, it’s going to be a while before this legislation is passed, so they will be waiting even longer.

I do want to say that the Government have recently agreed—Oranga Tamariki has also settled their pay equity claim. That’s a 30 percent increase over a two-year period, and that will have a significant impact on them. The issue, though, that I do want to just put on record is that I’m hopeful the Government is considering the flow-on effect. So it’s fantastic for Oranga Tamariki workers—absolutely brilliant. They deserve it. It’s a pay equity claim, and 30 percent will make an enormous difference to them. But what I do urge the Government to look at is what the impact is on others providing social services, those who work in non-government organisations, or NGOs, who will struggle to adjust to that. So I am hopeful that the Government is considering what that means, what that means for the thousands of New Zealanders—a large number of them are women—who work in those sectors to ensure that they also have the ability to be paid what they are worth.

Of course, when we talk about women being paid what they are worth, this is not equal pay, this discussion. It is not the same pay for the same job; it is the same pay for a job of equal value, and that’s pay equity. I do want to say, having been involved in the early years on this particularly important piece of legislation—I do want to give my thanks to the joint working group members and those who joined for mark 2 of that joint working group.

I also want to pay tribute to officials, particularly in the Ministry for Women. Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment officials and others have been involved, but the Ministry for Women is a small agency. On this particular piece of legislation, they’ve had a significant influence. They’ve worked incredibly tirelessly on it and they’ve always brought a very different perspective to the table, and I want to put on record my thanks for their work on this legislation.

As I say, National is pleased to support it to the first reading. I would encourage businesses, unions, and workers, to make sure that their views are heard in the select committee. The select committee is a critical opportunity to improve the legislation. So we are optimistic that some of the areas that we have concerns about currently—one is making sure that any additional factors into this, whether it’s the comparators, whether it’s the back-pay, don’t actually make it harder for employees who are currently undervalued to access pay equity and to be successful in their claims. So if there’s a message I can send the Government: please make sure it is accessible, please make sure it is practical, that it is easily understood by both employees and employers, and make sure there are not people who are fed into a process where they wouldn’t have success and waste a lot of time and energy on the way through.

I am pleased to support this Equal Pay Amendment Bill in the first reading, and I look forward to my colleagues’ hard work in the select committee.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Equal Pay Amendment Bill 2018. There are times when I stand in the House and just shake my head, actually, at some of the things that are being said by the Opposition. I don’t know where Kristine Bartlett is today, but I can only imagine that it must irritate her something shocking to be lauded by the Opposition today, when she was required to take the court case, forced into a situation of years of having to fight for what was now apparently, according to the Opposition speakers, obvious all along. It was obvious all along!

I listened to the Hon Nikki Kaye. I totally support the acknowledgment of the joint working group—the joint working group that the previous Government put together, disbanded, and then completely ignored the majority of the stuff that they said should happen. The joint working group proved a lie to the fact that business and unions cannot work together for the betterment of all. Yet I would have to say to the public, “Go and have a look”, and whenever else the word “union” is mentioned by the Opposition, it’s not often with that same loving tone, I can tell you now. So I do want to acknowledge the joint working group.

I want to acknowledge—again, the last speaker talked about the pay equity deal, the pay equity arrangement that was reached by Oranga Tamariki and the Public Service Association (PSA). That was $114 million over five years—a 30.6 percent increase for statutory social workers employed by Oranga Tamariki. But that didn’t happen by accident. There are a couple of things that need to be acknowledged there. Tina Corrigan, my very, very dear friend Rachael Baxter-Mackay, and Pixie Stockman: three women who had to put their names on a court case to bring that forward under the previous administration because that was the only way this was going to get discussed—for women to actually go to court. What Oranga Tamariki and the PSA have proven, even before this legislation has gone through, is that the way to create comparators collegially, working together as employer and as workers’ representatives—working collegially together to find the comparators is not an issue.

It set the tone for the negotiations once that comparator was established—mutually agreed. So not only should the PSA and Oranga Tamariki be acknowledged for the collegial way that they actually worked through this issue, came up with the comparators the way that the joint working group had said that they should—there was never any drama in it. We need to recall that when, I believe, the Opposition is going to try and go back to what was their preferred way of coming up with comparators—the hierarchy of comparators or whatever—that removed that ability for those representing the workers involved and the organisations and the employers to come up with what is right and what is proper for themselves. They are grown-ups. They are actually able to work together, and we need to start breaking apart the myth that we cannot have this collegiality between employers and unions.

I also want to acknowledge the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins and this coalition Government, with supply and confidence partners, who did an historic pay equity settlement for education support workers. Hundreds of women who support some of our most challenging young people inside our schools with physical and behavioural needs—back in August 2018, they received their pay equity settlement. That’s going to take some of those support workers from between $16.77 and $19.87 per hour up to a new rate of around $25.70 per hour. That is an amazing lift for some of those women, and quite rightly—

💬 Mark Patterson: Well deserved.

“Well deserved.”, my male colleagues shout from behind me, as they should.

I will acknowledge, again, the Hon Nikki Kaye, when she said that this is not just about money; this is about validation—validation of the work being done. Some of the work that women are doing for some of the lowest pay is among the hardest that we have inside this nation, so we needed to make sure that we not only acknowledge it in a dollar value but acknowledge it just across society.

I want to talk for a moment about the back-pay issue, because I know it is causing some people concern. I want to acknowledge the fact that people need to go and have a look at new section 13ZD, inserted by clause 18, which sets out limitation periods that will apply to awards for work performed before the date of the determination—e.g., before it was determined what the appropriate rate should be. It states that the maximum period for which back-pay can be sought is six years in all cases. And this is the point of it. We’ve heard again today, from way back in 1998 to today, that we still have an over 9 percent gap around what the value is of this work, and this has been since the late 1990s. We cannot wait any more. So this is to incentivise both parties to get together and deal with this issue. With 125 years of women’s suffrage, we need to move on and put this to bed. We need to get this sorted, and we need to get it sorted as quickly as possible.

I am very interested—and, again, the Hon Nikki Kaye—in how quickly one shifts position. The Hon Nikki Kaye spoke about, and I think the other speakers from the Opposition side have talked about, how slow this Government has been—it’s been here for 12 months—to address this issue. Nine years—nine years [Gestures to Opposition benches]; 12 months [Gestures to Government benches]. So I think we’re moving with a somewhat rapid speed.

I would welcome the members of the Opposition seeking to truncate the select committee if they think we’re going too slowly. If the Opposition believes that the Government is going too slowly, then I would suggest they can move a motion at select committee that it moves much faster through. Then we can return it to the House and get it into legislation and away we go—all will be right with the world, according to the Opposition. But, again, while sometimes I do stand and shake my head, what I do know about this side of the House is that this Government is moving forward to make New Zealand a better place for all New Zealanders, and this is another step in the recognition that women New Zealanders needed—52 percent of the public needed.

I’m going to make one last comment, and that is around the suggestion that this Government may not be aware of flow-on effects out of the Oranga Tamariki pay equity settlement. We are, and we are working on it, so it’s all right. Calm yourself—sorry, not you, Mr Speaker. The other thing though, too, is around this concept of how many women are in the workforce. I would like to make sure that we don’t decide to set up a target for women in the workforce that forces them into the workforce, unless they wish to be there.

So this is about making sure that we don’t see work as being the be-all and end-all with regard to your value to society. This is about making sure that when women do work, they are paid fairly for the work that they do. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take this call in the first reading of the Equal Pay Amendment Bill. That was a very interesting contribution. In that contribution, the Hon Tracey Martin kept contradicting herself. On one side, she said that this needs to be quickly sorted, but then the second line was that, “Oh, why is the Opposition saying this needs to be rushed through?” Yes, in Opposition, we want this issue to be rushed through because we highly value this issue.

The whole world is actually working towards this issue that is to reduce the gender pay gap, and National has shown they are committed. We have already demonstrated our commitment, because we had legislation that was introduced in July 2017—July 2017—and that was in the name of the Hon Michael Woodhouse, who the Hon Tracey Martin forgot, actually, to acknowledge. That was the Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill, and the first reading of that bill happened in August 2017. This is now October 2018, when we are debating the first reading of this Equal Pay Amendment Bill. So, yes, there is this big lag. That is why we want to see that.

This legislation should have been progressed by now, which hasn’t happened, because when the Government changed in the last election and the Labour Government came in, the first thing they did was get rid of this bill—got rid of the bill that was introduced by the previous National Government. If they were really keen to quickly sort this issue, they could have worked with us on that legislation, but no. They decided to get rid of that bill, because I believe they have a political agenda behind this bill that is the Equal Pay Amendment Bill. It’s not about the issue; it’s all about their political agenda, because they wanted to own that space. They want it to look like they are the ones that are keen in this kind of issue that is to reduce the gender pay gap.

They thought that people would not remember what National did when National was in Government—but we were so determined. Yes, that had already gone through the first reading. When we came into Opposition, we decided that we would pursue this issue of gender pay gap, and that was through a member’s bill. Again, Government members decided to oppose that, because if they had supported that—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! Can we come to the bill now?

Mr Speaker, I am building the ground for it.

💬 SPEAKER: You’re heading towards it? Very good.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you. It is important that we remind Government members of the work that National did, because this bill is not very different from the bill that was introduced by National. For Government members to stand up and take the credit, I think they should remember the work of the previous National Government.

Then what happened on the 125th suffrage anniversary? They came up with this bill, the Equal Pay Amendment Bill. If they had worked with us, then we could have actually implemented the bill on that day, instead of introducing a new bill to start all over again, and now we are debating the first reading of this bill. So, yes, we have wasted so much time. We really want to sort this a.s.a.p. We are really keen to sort this issue.

As other speakers have said, we have a gender gap that is around 9 percent. Yes, we have come down from the time we started measuring it, which was around 16 percent, and if we look at other OECD countries, we are on the lower side. Our gender pay gap is lower than so many other OECD countries, but we know that any kind of gender pay gap is not acceptable, so that’s why we want to work towards reducing the gender pay gap.

As we are determined to work on this issue, we have decided that we will support this bill in the first reading to the select committee, because we want to see what individuals and organisations will be saying about this bill, and we also want to have the opportunity to work with Government, to work on this bill to make it better. We do have some reservations, and that is why we are saying that we will be supporting this bill only in the first reading at this stage. We want this bill to go to the select committee because we understand this is a very important issue.

The issue of equal pay and pay equity, which this bill is to address, is a very complex issue—we all understand that. And this issue cannot be fully resolved by legislation, but, yes, legislation is needed. So there are different components of this issue, which is a very complex issue, where we need different kinds of legislation. And this is one kind of legislation that is to address that issue.

Looking at the contributing factors, we know that there are some professions that are female-dominated and there are professions that are male-dominated. Female-dominated professions are paid lower than male-dominated professions, and that needs to be addressed. We also know that we have fewer women in leadership roles, but reminding everybody that National worked really hard, and now we have a record number of women on State sector boards. So that was to highlight the importance of women’s contribution to our economy at different levels.

We also know that some women want to work part-time hours, and that is a reason why we have this gender pay gap. For that, we introduced flexible work hours, and also keeping-in-touch days, so that when people are on paid parental leave, they have this ability to stay in touch with their work, so that they don’t have to start again from the bottom, so that they don’t miss out on the opportunity to get promoted or have higher positions in the profession that they are in. So we did all those things, but then there was a study where it said that 80 percent of the reasons why the gender pay gap exists are unknown. And that is what makes me really curious, and I believe that comes down to some form of bias—some form of conscious or unconscious bias which needs to be addressed, too. For that, we need to have continuous dialogue about this issue, so that we are raising awareness along with working on legislation.

In this legislation, as I said, we have some reservations. One thing that I want to highlight is that this legislation is different from the legislation that we introduced, in, actually, a few parts. One part that is different is the system that we wanted the claim to follow. They have removed that structure, that system that we wanted a claim to follow. What they want is, when you’re looking at a comparable profession, they are thinking that you can go really wide. What we think is that the place where it should start should be from within the profession or sector, if appropriate, or if available. So that is the structure that we wanted to put in place through our legislation, which is not included in this legislation. So I believe that this change, actually, is not going to solve the problem; it is actually going to create more problems for those people who will be making claims. We want to make sure that the process is simple. To keep that process simple, people should know where to start and which industry to look into to start with, and then the direction that they can go in to make sure that they are not wasting their time and their employer’s or the court’s time.

The other thing I noticed in this bill is that they have reduced the time for the employer to respond, and I simply don’t understand the basis for that—reducing that from 90 days to 65 days. Why reduce that from 90 days to 65 days? I simply don’t understand that, because the employer needs to be given proper time so that they can respond to that claim. Putting that kind of pressure on employers I think is just unnecessary.

The legislation that was introduced by us was based on recommendations made by a joint working group—and yes, the joint working group had representatives from Government, unions, and employers. What happened? They came up with recommendations which were in line with our employment framework and also our labour market. Then what happened? Labour decided to reconvene the group. What happened was that group actually reconfirmed the recommendations which were made by the previous joint working group. So I don’t see the basis for these changes in this legislation and putting this unnecessary kind of pressure on employers by reducing the number of days that they get to respond from 90 to 65.

Overall, as we said, the aim of this bill is to address equal pay and pay equity issues. That is why we are supporting this bill in the first reading to the select committee stage. We are really keen to hear from the sector. We are really keen to hear from organisations that employ women, men, and, of course, sectors that are male-dominated, sectors that are female-dominated, and what they have to come and say on this bill in the select committee process. And we would be really keen to see that the Government is willing to work with us on this bill. Yes, we are in Opposition, but we are willing to work with them on these kinds of important issues. We have clearly seen that they are not, because they dismissed two bills that were put forward by National’s team—that was once when we were in Government, and the second time as a member’s bill. And they completely dismissed those bills. They didn’t want to work with us, but we are willing to work with them. So I am supporting this bill in the first reading so that it can go to the select committee. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Fakalofa lahi atu Fakatonu, Fono Taane.

[Much greetings, Mr Speaker.]

It’s language week for Niueans, and it is a great opportunity to celebrate Niuean language here in the House of Parliament. Fakalofa lahi atu kia mutolu oti.

[Much greetings to you all.]

Thank you for this call on the Equal Pay Amendment Bill, Mr Speaker. I would, first of all, like to acknowledge and thank Kristine Bartlett and her union, E tū, for her courage and perseverance, and thank the union for supporting Kristine to ensure that we get to this day and that we address equal pay. I’m humbled to be a woman who is a Minister in this Government, and really honoured to be speaking in support of this historic legislation today. The Equal Pay Amendment Bill will establish a fair and accessible process to address the historic pay inequities that women in Aotearoa New Zealand are currently facing.

One of the things that we’ve heard from the previous speaker, Parmjeet Parmar, as well as the Hon Nikki Kaye, was about how slow our Government has been to address this issue. We haven’t even been here 12 months. The previous speaker spoke about how they had a bill that was ready in 2017. The previous Government had nine very long years. If they were as committed to addressing equal pay as the previous speaker said they were, they should have addressed it within those nine long years. They shouldn’t have left it right until the end of their tenure of nine years before addressing it if, indeed, they were committed to addressing equal pay.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! I’m now going to call the member to address the bill. I think that theme has got to the point of being tedious repetition.

The Equal Pay Amendment Bill provides clarity on what equal pay should be, what the process should be for addressing pay equity. We know that discrimination has led to lower pay for many of our female-dominated industries. We also know that this is despite having similar qualifications, having the same skill requirements, and, in many instances, for some women it’s despite having higher qualifications or many more years of work experience. They are still not being paid comparable pay to folks in a male-dominated occupation.

As a Government, we are committed to growing and sharing prosperity in a fair way. Taking action to close the gender pay gap, as well as to address this issue of historical undervaluation of work that is predominantly performed by our women, is one of things that our Government is doing with the introduction of this legislation.

It is of note that the Equal Pay Amendment Bill was, indeed, introduced to this House on 19 September—125 years to the day since the fight for women’s right to vote was won. The suffragettes that took the cause of pay equity in the 1800s understood the huge significance of equal pay. They saw the battle that would follow. After winning the vote for women, that was going to be their next fight. I don’t think they could predict that 125 years later, we would still be having this discussion. I don’t think they foresaw that 125 years later, we would still not be there.

New Zealand women, over the years, pressed hard for pay equity, and they achieved the Equal Pay Act of 1972. However, we’re still not there yet in terms of pay parity. This Equal Pay Amendment Bill will make it easier for workers to make a pay equity claim. It will allow workers to use accessible processes to raise their claim within New Zealand’s existing bargaining framework, setting negotiation rather than court processes at its core.

Poverty and inequality are real issues that are facing too many of our women nowadays. I wish to acknowledge that when we talk of equal pay, there are many of our women—especially Māori women, Pacific women, and ethnic communities women—who are bearing the brunt of this burden, in many instances. The hourly wage rates for men and women already show women at a disadvantage of 9.2 percent, but when we look into further details of that disparity, we know that many Māori, Pacific, and women of ethnic communities tend to earn sometimes $6 per hour less than women of other ethnic groups. This is not right. It is not fair. It is not equitable, and this bill is one way this Government is taking action to ensure that we address that.

My colleague the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway has already outlined the history and the approach for this bill, but I must note that the bill before us does not include any of the hurdles that were planned by the previous Government that would have made it too hard for many working women to raise pay equity claims in reality. The previous National Government’s bill took a limiting approach to pay equity claims. It was criticised by stakeholders, hence our decision to rework it with the assistance of the reconvened joint working group. This has resulted in a much better bill and a much more balanced and practical bill. I strongly support this bill, and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Fono Taane. [Mr Speaker.] It is my pleasure to speak on this bill in Niue Language Week and to attempt to acknowledge that with my limited abilities.

It’s with a strange combination of déjà vu and frustration, I have to say, that I stand up to take a call, late this afternoon, on this bill, the Government’s newly introduced Equal Pay Amendment Bill. The frustration is driven not by an opposition to the bill itself, because we’ve clearly outlined that we will support it to its first reading. That’s the right thing to do. The National Party supports this bill because achieving pay equity is our next hurdle that we need to cross as a society, and we all acknowledge that. Closing the gender pay gap and achieving pay equity in New Zealand is incredibly important to us all. It’s a principle the National Party supports and one that we have championed. As you know, we got to this first, and, for reasons I’m about to explain, I have a sense of pride in seeing this legislation achieve its first reading today. So the issue is not the bill itself.

My frustration is instead because of the date. Today is 16 October 2018. It has been—let me get this right—eight months and 24 days since my member’s bill titled Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill was pulled from the ballot. It has also been one year, two months, and 20 days since my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse first introduced the content of that bill to this House. In that time period, spanning over more than one year, this Government has blocked progress on pay equity on two separate occasions, and you can’t escape that: once, when they blocked the bill from being reinstated back on to this Parliament’s agenda—the 52nd Parliament’s agenda, otherwise known as the Order Paper—and again when they voted it down on the first reading of my member’s bill. They railed against the bill back then in March, and their opposition was well-known.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! I’m going to bring the member to the bill currently before the House now, as I did with the previous speaker, Jenny Salesa. Thank you.

Will do so, Mr Speaker. I intend to refer to the joint working group’s principles, which the bill is undergirded with, and also point out the three main differences. So thank you, Mr Speaker—will do.

Jacinda Ardern mentioned very clearly, in regards to that bill—she said the words “How is it possible that we could introduce a bill that took an entire generation backwards in terms of our ability to achieve pay equity?” Well, you can imagine my shock when this bill here that we’re addressing this afternoon was tabled and I was able to see that 90 percent of that bill is word for word what we introduced, and that’s the reality and the stark reality—word for word.

Now, if you don’t believe me, I’ve got a copy of the bill here, and in it I’ve highlighted the yellow. That is exactly word for word what was in the bill that I introduced as my member’s bill. That’s a lot of yellow. The pages keep going. I think I’ve just turned my sixth or seventh page. The yellow is the exact—

💬 Hon Member: You must have gone through one yellow highlighter.

—same content. Apart from the fact that I ran out of highlighter ink, it’s a cynical move by this Government. They slammed that bill when it was first introduced earlier in the year. They reconvened the working group that based the same principles—they did a shabby copy and paste job and introduced their own nearly identical version. Now, pay equity is an important issue for New Zealand, and the Government has delayed progress for months just so—and here’s the reality of the situation—they could grab their Suffrage Day photo op. That’s exactly what happened, and it’s shameful. They’re playing politics with pay equity. They turned it into a political game where both sides are trying to one-up each other, but all around and all the while women in New Zealand want and need real progress and real movement towards pay equity.

Now, if you go through this bill, you can see that the Government’s made changes, and we’ve heard them stand up and say that these changes were necessary to make it a better bill. But I want to point out that the Government could have easily made these changes at select committee or at committee of the whole House—again, another stark point of reality. Had they not blocked the earlier versions of this bill, remembering how similar the content is when I showed you it, highlighted in yellow, they would have had—I’ve clocked up—four opportunities to amend or make the bill into what they now see, and what we see here this afternoon, as their version.

Now, last month, Iain Lees-Galloway and Eugenie Sage stood outside Parliament on the steps announcing the introduction of this bill here this afternoon. Had they done the right thing months and months ago, rather than this bill just being introduced on Suffrage Day we could have actually signed this bill into law on Suffrage Day. Imagine that. On the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage, we could have had the Governor-General, Dame Patsy Reddy, who also, incidentally, was the head of the joint working group—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order!

—sign this bill into law. That’s what we could have had. What a symbol of progress that could have been, instead of what we now see as, between now and then, wasted time.

Now, I want to finish up my time refuting the claim that the changes that have been made in this bill have resulted in better outcomes than our version, and I’m going to go through the three main differences. I’ve talked at length about the similarities, because we can see, highlighted in yellow ink, exactly what those similarities are. So the main differences are—and I’ve got three—number one, the Government removed our hierarchy that should have been used when finding comparable professions. So was that cynical on our part to have that hierarchy? No. We needed a pragmatic method to ensure structure when looking at claims. It’s not easy, but you had to start with something. That’s gone.

Number two: they’ve loosened the criteria to determine if a job is undervalued. We had both historically and currently undervalued; this version says either. Where will the line get drawn? That’s a legitimate question. Why is it that Dame Patsy Reddy and the joint working group determined that it should be both?

Point three: they’ve changed the criteria, in this version, that a claim must have “merit”, to, now, must be “arguable”. Again, Dame Patsy Reddy highlighted—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order!

—that merit was the way to go.

💬 SPEAKER: No, sorry—[Interruption] Order! I’m just going to interrupt the member for a second. The convention in the House is that the Governor-General is not brought into the debate unless it’s absolutely necessary. I think if the member just refers to the chair of the working party, or something like that, that is an appropriate approach.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m happy to do so. When we look at the word “arguable” versus “merit”, my main point here is who benefits from the word “arguable”—lawyers. That says it all, and in my closing comments the major change inside this version of the bill—well, the 10 percent that was actually changed—is that this Government has left the door wide open for the same long, protracted bouts of litigation, and breakdowns in negotiations that inevitably end up in court.

We support this through to select committee, but as a House we’re going to have to be honest and as a select committee—and I’m really grateful that I’m on the particular select committee that this will be going to—we’re going to have to be very, very honest with ourselves and ask if we are legislating for true change here or are we legislating for more of the same types of battles that we’ve seen before. We would argue that the small amount of change that has been introduced here this afternoon is going to send us down many of those same tracks; namely, long, protracted court battles, and the women of New Zealand not only deserve to have this brought into the House long before now; they also deserve to not have the same cycles of frustration. We support this bill to its first reading. Thank you for the opportunity to speak and to speak doing so in Niue Language Week. Thank you.

That was quite an interesting contribution there from the previous member, Denise Lee, on that bill. I’m looking forward to it coming to our select committee because it might be an opportunity to help the Opposition understand just how powerful this bill is and what has been added to this bill. This bill has followed the recommendations—all of the recommendations—of the original and reconvened joint working group to make it fair and equitable, restoring fairness and equity into the workplace, and to get rid of the hurdles that had been put in by the previous Government.

This is actually a really good day that we are seeing here—seeing this bill coming to the House—and I’m really proud in this anniversary of the 125 years of suffrage that this Government is bringing this bill here. It was only last year in the campaign that I had a group of young women who came to me and asked whether I ever foresaw that we would one day see equal pay as being as being part of the norm, like voting is part of the norm for women now, like suffrage is a historical event—did I ever see that we would talk about that as a historical event? I said, “Yes, just watch what happens.”

Twelve months later, here we are as a Government that is putting this right, and I am really excited to be here in this House today talking about this bill. Well done to the joint working group. Well done on them coming up with these recommendations, and I am proud to be in the Government who have listened to this. I am very, very proud to say that I commend this bill to the House.

Mr Speaker, fakalofa lahi atu in this Niue Language Week. I rise to speak on the Equal Pay Amendment Bill. What this bill is about is a very simple concept, and I thought about how I would explain this bill to my two daughters if I was to get them to understand the significance of this issue. It’s simple, isn’t it? A man and a woman should be given equal pay for the same job. If they are doing the same job, they should get the same pay. And a man and a woman who are doing different jobs but jobs of equal value should get the same pay. And those two simple concepts underpin this bill and are the point of connection between both sides of the House in this debate. Those two concepts we in the National Party agree with wholeheartedly and have taken considerable steps to progress during our time both previously in Government and over successive generations.

Having taken that simple concept, we then need to look at what progress there has been on those issues for New Zealand and why it is that this legislation is in fact required. In some senses, you could argue that the direction of travel is good. Even in my lifetime, progress on pay equity has increased dramatically. In 1998, when I was a 17-year-old, the pay gap was 16.3 percent, and that has now reduced to 9.24 percent. So I would say to my daughters, “If that much is possible within my lifetime, imagine how much is possible within yours.”

So we know that progress is possible, but when we look at where this bill came from, we have to acknowledge the history that has brought it about. In the Equal Pay Act 1972, we had a piece of legislation with good intent, and it was in recent history, in 2014, that the Court of Appeal found in the Terranova case that that Act did imply that the Equal Pay Act did include that concept of pay equity—that a man and a woman doing different jobs of equal value should be given equal pay. So the National Government established in good faith a joint working group to develop pay equity principles. That process led to the development of legislation that had been very well-thought-through, and that was introduced in 2017.

It was that same year that Kristine Bartlett had her incredible win, which led to a $2 billion pay equity settlement. I’ve heard in this House on many occasions when members opposite have brought into question that settlement saying, “Oh well, it doesn’t really count because National didn’t want to do it.”, and I just want to put on the record very clearly that National did it because we wanted to do it—

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

—and that we believed that that settlement was the right settlement, and that we backed the 55,000 aged-care workers who benefited from that settlement. We take pride in the fact that that was the most significant pay equity settlement in New Zealand’s history and it was delivered by a National-led Government. [Interruption] Beyond that settlement, we did introduce legislation in good faith, and why did we do that?

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Sorry, I am going to interrupt the member. I know that when members say something inflammatory, they can expect to have a degree of barracking coming back at them, but I think it has gone too far.

Mr Speaker, isn’t is sad that it’s inflammatory to claim something which is true in the historical record—a settlement that was delivered by a National Government—and that it pains members opposite so much that they can’t put their Labour red flag to something that we too are proud of.

Now, when it came to introducing this legislation, the Government was very clear of what we were trying to do at that time, and that was to ensure that people wanting to progress pay equity claims in the future wouldn’t have to be tied up in an endless court process—that, in fact, negotiation could be a way through these sorts of claims into the future; the sort of bargaining process that exists elsewhere in employment law. So, of course, this bill that we are debating tonight picks up on that concept, and as previous speakers have said, including Denise Lee, whom I want to congratulate for her great work in progressing this via a member’s bill earlier this year, being thwarted only by members opposite, what we see is that this bill picks up on that and makes very minor changes that could be significant. A select committee will have to consider that in due course, but it really reminds us of how petty politics can sometimes be—that a Government would withhold a bill so that it could be reannounced on Suffrage Day, when in fact they couldn’t have it—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare, and, because it’s Niue Language Week, fakalofa atu. I am delighted to take this call on the Equal Pay Amendment Bill, but I’m unsure where to start with the barrage of information that we’ve received from the other side.

Several members have talked about this being a third attempt. Well, if that is so, I would say third time lucky, because women would have been very unlucky had any of the two previous versions gone through. They in fact would have kept women in discriminatory low pay rates for a very long time. Now, the hierarchy of comparators is something that the member Denise Lee had highlighted, and, whilst this may have been a very small change in her mind, this, in fact, is an absolutely incredible difference to this bill. What the hierarchy of comparators in the previous bill did was deliberately reversing the court decision. That hierarchy of comparators was designed to keep women from ever being successful in future pay equity claims, so what this Equal Pay Amendment Bill does is much better. It includes the comparators that are completely in line with the recommendations of the working group and of the Terranova decision.

So let’s look at that Terranova decision, because mention was made by Louise Upston that nobody should go through the battle that Kristine Bartlett did. Kristine Bartlett and her union, E tū, went through a more than five-year-long battle and were dragged all the way through all levels of courts.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Before we had kai time I had a couple of minutes to speak on the Equal Pay Amendment Bill, and I appreciate the opportunity to add a couple more on to it, if the whip allows. So, just to recap, this is a good bill, unlike the versions that the National Party would like us to believe were just as good. In fact, what they would have done is they would have kept women on discriminatory low pay rates for a long time.

I talked about the fact that the member Louise Upston had mentioned that nobody should go through the same battle that Kristine Bartlett did. What really happened was that Kristine Bartlett and her union, E tū, were dragged through all levels of court over five years before a settlement was finally agreed to. Because the then National Government didn’t want to see any other women win the same battle that Kristine Bartlett and her union had just won, they tried to force legislation through that would stop any future claims—with a majority of one vote, I may add, they tried to force that through. So it’s a bit rich for the member Nicola Willis to stand up in this House and refer to the care and support workers settlement as something that the National Party wanted to do, because all actions prior to that settlement and all of the actions after the settlement reinforce the fact the National Party wanted to stop women from achieving any future pay equity claims.

When the member Denise Lee spoke in her speech, she referred to the previous National Government bill as a pragmatic structure, but, in fact, what this pragmatic structure was was a hierarchy of comparators that would have for ever kept women on their low pay rates. Shame on Opposition members for standing in this House and making the comments they have on this particular piece of legislation. They must have forgotten that pay equity campaigners and all those who were very closely involved with that settlement all disagreed with the National Government’s bill and disagreed with the member’s bill earlier this year. In fact, Kristine Bartlett’s lawyer in the pay equity settlement for the aged care workers had referred to the National Government’s bill as dreadful.

So, in a few bullet points, I’ll wrap up now what this bill does: it sets a lower threshold to raise a claim; it provides a simpler, easier, and more cost-effective process to progress a claim; it also allows parties to set their own comparators—that is a really crucial one—and it allows for back-pay. So, concluding, this bill provides an opportunity for our lowest-paid workers to have one decently paid job rather than having two or three to try and make ends meet. Instead of spending time to go from one to the other job, trying and struggling to feed and care for their whānau, they can have one decent job and spend time with their whānau. This is hugely important, well-overdue legislation. This is the bill that gets it right, and I commend it to the House.

Fakalofa atu and happy Niue Language Week, Mr Assistant Speaker. I’d just like to also say a very special hello to my nephew—my godson Zion, who is part Niuean—at home: I hope you’re doing well and building on your Niuean language skills this week.

It is my pleasure to take a call on the Equal Pay Amendment Bill and to represent the other side, that is, the side of men who want to see women in New Zealand paid the equal value for the work that they do. It’s a privilege, certainly for the member for Northcote, which is where I represent—I certainly want women to be paid the equal value, not just in Northcote but, of course, in New Zealand.

I want to respond, firstly, to the dribble that I just heard from the Government benches. This member, Marja Lubeck, talked about what’s dreadful. I tell you, what’s dreadful is that we’ve lost 12 months of equal pay claims because this Government decided to turn down not one but two bills of a similar nature, just so they could bring their own bill to the House today. I just think that’s a waste of time and it’s disappointing for the women of New Zealand who have lost that opportunity to take their claims under what is, I think, a very good bill, and we’ll be supporting it at that.

I do want to commend the Minister, the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, Iain Lees-Galloway, for bringing this bill to the House. Its purpose, just to remind those watching at home, is to eliminate and prevent discrimination based on sex, and that discrimination in respect of remuneration or any other conditions of employment, whether it be fringe benefits and the like, and, in doing so, to promote an enduring settlement of claims related to sexual discrimination.

I do want to acknowledge that there is a problem, and although we have made progress—having a gender pay gap nationally going from 16.3 percent in 1998 down to a lower rate of 9.2 percent in 2018—there is much more to do on this. I do want to acknowledge that the problem exists not just at the company level but also at the industry level and at the country-wide level as well. I come from the private sector and I have had many colleagues who believe that they have been unfairly discriminated against in terms of their pay, but they haven’t had the right mechanism to address that. I certainly know that they will be supporting a bill like this through the House.

I do want to acknowledge, though, the work that is being done by the many businesses throughout New Zealand to address the pay gap for women in New Zealand. I come from a “big four” accounting firm, and they have made big strides in not only publishing and making widely available their pay gap by tenure in organisations but actively trying to promote cases where they can reduce the gap in gender pay. So I think something we are proud of in the National Party is that it’s not all up to Government legislation to address these problems. I do want to acknowledge the many businesses that are taking strides and making headway, and I think that from a values perspective we want to see more of these businesses make strides in the future with respect to gender pay.

I do want to just explain a little bit about the bill, as I see it, for the people at home. Absolutely an advantage of this bill is that it does make strides towards closing the gender pay gap. It provides a clear and step-by-step process by which people who are not happy with their pay or who feel like they’re being discriminated against can take their claim and make that widely shared. I want to distinguish three general buckets, if you please, of claims that the bill makes reference to. The first is around equal pay claims, which are claims of discrimination with respect to the dollar remuneration. There’s also unlawful discrimination claims that this bill also makes clear, which is discrimination based particularly around the fringe benefits and other conditions of employment as well. Finally, there’s the pay equity claim, which is a rate of remuneration paid for work that is mostly performed by females that is less than male-dominated professions of equal value. Currently, the Equal Pay Act is not equipped to deal with this and so we in the National Party recognise that this bill, in fact, provides a mechanism for claims in any of these three scenarios to be brought forward and resolved in a timely and accurate manner.

Why do I support this bill? I support this bill to select committee because I’m proud that our party supports equal opportunity and equal reward for work of equal value. We in the National Party encourage people to strive and we encourage people to use their best talents to the fullest, whatever your gender. Women deserve equal pay of equal value, and I want to acknowledge, of course, that we celebrated Suffrage Day, so it’s not lost on me, the importance of this bill at such a time that we celebrate such a momentous occasion. But the current process is difficult, it’s often expensive, and it’s cumbersome. I think the case of Terranova Homes and Care and the service and food workers’ union, which Kristine Bartlett led so amicably, demonstrated that we absolutely need to look at ways to make this a lot better—it’s certainly cumbersome and expensive and risky—and that’s what this bill does. It allows claims to be put forward and addressed in a timely manner, and this bill identically addresses that.

I do want to raise one very important note, which is: why didn’t the Government support previous bills like this one? As my colleague Denise Lee said, 90 percent of this bill is exactly the same as my colleague Denise Lee’s member’s bill that was put forward in the House several months ago. Why did this Government not support that bill? What about the—[Interruption] I’d call the members to outline it, because it’s not clear. I’ve listened to every speech in the House tonight, and it’s still not clear to me why a bill that was 90 percent of this bill wasn’t taken forward to select committee, which you guys could have made amendments to. They have the overwhelming majority on that committee and, unfortunately, they didn’t choose to do that.

💬 Simeon Brown: Underwhelming.

Underwhelming. They also rejected a bill that we had put forward in the name of the Hon Michael Woodhouse which, again, was very similar, and there’s no evidence to suggest that they’ve done this for any other reason than that they want to claim the credit for this bill. I say to them, shame on them—that’s 12 months when women could have been able to advance their claim under this bill and, unfortunately, tonight, we’re 12 months into that delay.

National supports good bills, regardless of where they come from. We have supported the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership legislation, which is now going through the House. We’ve supported the military justice legislation. We’re going to support the zero carbon bill. We in the National Party don’t care if the Government gets the credit. We’re prepared to take pride for the benefit of New Zealanders so that they can have—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Faakalofa lahi atu. I’m proud to speak about the equity pay amendment bill. This Government is committed to growing and sharing prosperity more fairly. This includes taking action to close the gender pay gap and to address issues of historical undervaluation of work done predominantly by women. The Equal Pay Amendment Bill will make it easier for workers to make a pay equity claim—and that’s what’s at the crux of this bill—by using a more simple and accessible process within New Zealand’s existing bargaining framework. The bill establishes a just and practical framework to address pay discrimination in female-dominated occupations. It’s an important step in improving fairness in the workplace. The legislation clarifies what a pay equity claim is and what the process for addressing it is. Discrimination has led to lower pay for many female-dominated industries, despite having similar working conditions and skill requirements to comparable male-dominated occupations.

This bill followed all the recommendations of the reconvened and original Joint Working Group on Pay Equity Principles without any of the hurdles planned by the previous Government that would have made it too hard to raise pay equity claims, and that’s one of the key differences between these bills. The National Government’s bill took a pinched and restricted approach to pay equity claims. That is why it was widely criticised by stakeholders and why we decided to rework it with the assistance of the reconvened joint working group. This bill strikes a much better balance. There is a big difference between the two bills. I am very proud to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Education and Workforce Committee.