Equal Pay Amendment Bill

We come now to the debate on clauses 1 to 3, “Title”, “Commencement”, and “Principal Act”.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. I was pretty keen to take a call on this because I’m of the view that this bill is named incorrectly. It’s called the Equal Pay Amendment Bill but, actually, if you consider the arguments that have been put forward by the Government Ministers, this isn’t an amendment bill; this is a repeal bill.

In order to justify what is proposed in this bill, they have tried to minimise the impacts and say, “No, no, all we’re doing is going back to what was in the bill when introduced in 2017.” That is very interesting, indeed. They’ve spent a lot of effort in trying to say that what this bill does is simply go back to provisions then, despite the fact that it was those Ministers that voted for the very changes that they are now saying need to be removed.

Now, that isn’t an amendment; that is a repeal—a repeal, in effect, from the 2020 bill—and if this House wants to send an accurate and honest reflection to the New Zealand people as to what is in this bill, then the title should be accurate and upfront. This is more than an amendment; this removes a whole swathe of changes that were brought in in 2020 and were supported pretty much across the House.

Now, I’m not one to read from my phone when I’m in the House, but I did see the finance Minister doing it the other day, and so I thought it, therefore, must be OK. During the debate in 2020—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): It’s not illegal yet.

Sorry, sir?

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): It’s not illegal yet.

Oh, really? Well, a pending member’s bill perhaps, sir! But in the debate in 2020 for the bill that this Government is now, essentially, repealing, National MPs at the time were scrambling over themselves to support it. Nicola Willis, for example, said this: “I’m proud to stand in this House tonight and say that National will be supporting this final reading of the Equal Pay Amendment Bill.”; the bill that they are now repealing. So I would propose that having a title that says “Equal Pay Amendment Bill” doesn’t tell the full story.

If Government Ministers are going to, in only a matter of five years, stand up, fight for a spot to declare how supportive they are of the provisions, and now sneakily try to get rid of them in urgency, only two weeks before a Budget, because their Budget doesn’t add up and they need the money, then they should be upfront in the title of the bill, and say that this is a repeal.

Not only were they so keen to support the bill, they actually tried to take credit for the crafting of it. Nicola Willis said that her party had “contributed to crafting this legislation and bringing it to the House”—and now they’re sneakily trying to get rid of it. That is a fact. It is on the Parliament Hansard, and so it should be reflected in the title of the bill that we are debating.

There’s another quote here which I thought was quite interesting in that very same debate. This one was from Erica Stanford, and I quote—this one’s a bit longer, but it does make the point—“The dreams I have for my daughter and my grandchildren—one day, when I have them, hopefully—is that they will grow up in a country where the work that they do is equally valued and compensated equally to that of their male counterparts. This bill sets out the framework that we will achieve that outcome.”

These are the words from the National Party members who are now Government Ministers and are trying to tell the country that this change is minor. It’s wrong, it is clear to be wrong, they themselves said it was a good thing, and they’re only getting rid of it now because their Budget doesn’t add up.

So my simple proposition to the House is that if the Government is going to be upfront with the people of New Zealand, at least have a title that reflects not only what is in the bill but the effect that this bill will have and, actually, is transparent around the journey of this bill: it was brought in in 2017; it was improved in 2020; Ministers in this Government, like Nicola Willis and Erica Stanford, not only crowed to support it but also claimed credit for it; and now these are the very same Ministers who want Parliament to vote against it today.

That is why I’m proposing to change the title from the Equal Pay Amendment Bill to the “Equal Pay Repeal Bill”, because that’s what this bill does: it repeals what those Ministers voted for.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. It is my honour to take a call on this bill, because any moment that we can stop this bill becoming law is a win for the women of New Zealand, because, make no mistake, this is a bill that does nothing more than cut women’s pay.

I want to speak in this title and commencement debate to an amendment that my colleague the Hon Ginny Andersen has put up to clause 2 of the legislation—so that’s the commencement clause—and it says the “Act comes into force on the day after Royal assent.” Now, my colleague Ginny Andersen has proposed that, in clause 2, we replace “on the day” with “10 years”, and there is a very clear rationale for why this should be the case: this delays the commencement of the Act so that the existing claims that were lodged under the previous legislation can be examined under the law that was there at the time they were lodged—so this is the 33 claims that are already lodged.

What we have is a Government that is, effectively, putting in place retrospective legislation. There are groups of workers and their organisations—dare I say the word “unions”—that have done a lot of work to get these pay equity claims lodged and in, and it is our contention, and through this amendment of Ginny Andersen, that these claims should be examined under the law as it was when they were lodged.

Now, I think one of the things that is getting lost, certainly from the non-answers we’ve been getting from the Minister in the chair, Brooke van Velden, and certainly from Government Ministers—certainly the Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon; the finance Minister, Nicola Willis—when they’ve answered this, is a lack of any focus on the real people that this bill is going to affect. If we look at those lists of the 33 claims that are going to be turfed out and then, because of clause 2 of this bill, will be examined under this new piece of legislation rather than, if my colleague’s amendment went through, be examined under the legislation as it was when they went through.

So we’re talking about hospice nurse and healthcare assistants. We’re talking about home care and support workers. We’re talking about some of the workers in this country that do some of the hardest, hardest work that we call on people to do. All we are asking through this amendment is that these groups of workers are able to go through and have those claims examined under the legislation as it stood.

Now, one of the reasons why I think this is vitally important, because we’ve heard a lot of words—let’s call them those—

💬 Hon Kieran McAnulty: Generous.

—from members of the Government. Generous—you’re right, Kieran McAnulty; it is generous. But we’ve heard a lot of words about what the problem is: that there were a whole lot of claims that had been lodged and, basically, that they weren’t fit, that that wasn’t what the legislation was intended to. But in the course of this debate and in question time today, we have not heard one example of what one of those claims are. We’re just hearing assertions from Ministers who know they are doing the wrong thing. They are doing nothing more than cutting women’s pay and selling the women of New Zealand absolutely down the river, but they will not front us and tell us what the problem is. What are the egregious claims that are sitting there that mean that we have to change this legislation, not only for future claims—and speaking to the amendment to clause 2 that my colleague Ginny Andersen has here—but for those existing claims so they could be heard under the legislation as it was lodged?

So I ask the Minister to tell this committee. We haven’t had a select committee process. We don’t have the option to tease that out through the committee process. We don’t have a regulatory impact statement. In fact, there is no analysis that we can see. What is the problem definition here? What are the claims that are so problematic that for 33 groups of workers that currently have claims in at the moment, the law is going to change and, because of clause 2 of this legislation—they lodged claims believing they were going to be examined under legislation as it was at the time, but this Government is going to pass what is, effectively, retrospective legislation, so that all changes. The Minister needs to front up. She’s not fronting up on much, but she needs to front up and tell us.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to take a call. The amendment that I want to make is to the title. This bill is titled the Equal Pay Amendment Act. I want to suggest a different title for this bill because I don’t think it accurately reflects what this is doing. Additionally, I’ll give a bit of a history lesson on equal pay that means I think the Minister for Workplace and Relations should consider perhaps a different title.

Many different things have happened in relation to the history of equal pay in this country, and many of the different Acts have specific names relating to the particular type of law that they were bringing in. We had the Government Service Equal Pay Act, that was one of the first pieces of legislation, and that was in 1960. That was appropriately named because that only applied to people in Government service.

Then the Equal Pay Act 1972 came in—that’s the primary Act—and that was the Act which made it illegal, if you can believe it, for men and women to not be officially paid different wages, because those with long memories, and I’ve looked into this, will remember that there was actually a time where it was legislated and it was in employment agreements that there were men’s and women’s rates for the same job. So that bill came in.

Now, throughout that period of time, after the passage of that bill, it was obviously good that it got rid of men and women being paid different wages, but there was also something that actually had been the work of the suffragists in New Zealand after they obtained the vote. They had wanted to focus on equal pay; it had been one of their objectives. That continued on after the 1972 Act. In 1990, there was a new Act, and the title of this Act was the Employment Equity Act. That was brought in in 1990. That bill sought—as I understand it—to look at pay equity but also look at other discrimination that was faced in the workplace. So I think that was probably appropriately titled.

Unfortunately, that Act brought in 1990—there are pictures of Helen Clark receiving flowers in this very House after that was passed—was repealed by the National Government that very same year. So that bill, as we had it, is no longer on our statute book.

Then we had a situation where there was a pay equity unit that was established. There wasn’t legislative intervention. The pay equity unit was also disestablished by a National Government. Then we had a case brought by Kristine Bartlett, which was really important, very significant. That was in 2014, and that case, in 2014, was really a landmark case. I think everyone in this House respects greatly the work that Kristine Bartlett did to bring that claim—she was Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year—and it resulted in a law change, and it was actually, at that time, championed by a National Government.

I had hoped that that was the change that we were to see, that we were all on one page when the National Government agreed to Kristine Bartlett’s claim. Unfortunately, after that settlement was put in place, that settlement has now expired and Kristine Bartlett and her colleagues are now, due to this Act, unable to take a pay equity claim. They’re on the minimum wage—most care and support workers—until 2027. So there’s a long history of equal pay, really, is my point.

It is appropriate that things are named appropriately. So I think that this is another step backwards for equal pay in New Zealand. It’s not unusual for this to happen, as you would see from the history. There are two steps forward, one step back. We had been making progress; New Zealand had been going forward. We had been looking to settle claims. It’s a hard process. I don’t think that any of our comments about the process said that it’s easy; it is difficult. It’s a process that takes time. But people, in good faith, were going through that. This bill is reducing the ability to do that.

Yes, it’s not getting rid of pay equity entirely. I mean, that would be a retrograde step that I put past even this Government. But this Act reduces the ability for women in New Zealand—underpaid women—to claim pay equity. So, therefore, I think the title is inappropriate. It’s the same title as the last Act that was passed, that it seeks to repeal—the Equal Pay Amendment Act. It should have a different title. I think it should be called the “Equal Pay Reduction Act” because that is what it does. It reduces the ability for women to take equal pay claims. It makes it harder. It reduces the amount of money that they’re likely to see. It makes the group of people that can take those claims smaller. It reduces women’s rights.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I, too, want to talk to the commencement part of this particular part that we are debating at the moment. I have an amendment in front of me in the name of my colleague Camilla Belich. She’s been very busy and, as you can hear from her history that she has given of the pay equity journey, has an absolute knowledge that is probably second to maybe those people that fought in 1972. But apart from that, we are very honoured to have Camilla as part of our team here with the knowledge that she brings, because I think it is really important that we bring that history here.

Now, the reason I wanted to talk about the commencement—like my colleague Megan Woods—is around the fact that it’s concerning that the Act comes into force on the day after Royal assent. Yesterday, when we were out the front with this rally that was called within an hour and a half and had quite a large number of people turn up to it on very, very short notice, we were gifted the opportunity to hear from people who have been part of the pay equity claims process. Listening to them was quite enlightening, about how robust the process has been, but how successful the process has been as well because of the ownership that members have had with that process. So it’s not a once-over-lightly; it is a process that takes many, many years and many iterations to go through.

That gave me confidence yesterday, when I listened to those people, about how incredibly robust that process was, that we had something that was incredibly successful. As a result, we have seen many claims that have been successful since the last amendments were put through in legislation.

Now, what I would like to argue here is that if we’re talking about—here, in this House today—the Act coming into force on the day after Royal assent, then all of that work means absolutely nothing. So all of the work that those people talked about—and in my first reading speech yesterday, I mentioned a woman who stood on those steps, called Tessa, who has been working as part of a librarian team with their pay equity claim for four years. Four years of work that, if this goes through the House today, will mean absolutely nothing. What that means is that, once again, women are having to go back to ground zero. All the gains that they have made, they’re actually going backwards because we are getting rid of something—well, not we, but the Government—

💬 Carl Bates: Shouldn’t have put it in place in the first place.

—is getting rid of something that has been working incredibly well. I sort of heard a little bit of a heckle coming through there, saying, “Well, maybe it shouldn’t have been put in place in the first place”. I suggest that those members who are calling that out go and read the history and understand what has happened since 2020, and also understand the process, because if they’re going to be short-sighted enough to call out heckles like that, it is obvious that they have no understanding of what they are talking about.

Now, my colleague Camilla Belich has proposed here that in clause 2, we would replace “on the day” with “five years”. Now, the reason that I want to talk to this is that I believe five years will see those claims get through. You know, when you hear that Tessa and her group of librarians have been working for four years, they’re probably at the tail end of their claim process. But there are some in that 33 who are right at the beginning. So if they are right near the beginning, then that means we’d give them five years to get their claim all the way through. I think that that is actually a very, very fair metric. It also means that we would not lose all of that work that has been done to this date. It means that they would still have ownership of the process, and it is incredibly important, for this to be successful going forward, that people have ownership in that process.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a number of tabled amendments on the title of this bill, and I want to address some of them, because I think one of the things we’ve heard throughout this discussion is still a lack of clarity from the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety regarding the rationale behind why this bill needs to be introduced into the House under urgency, other than the fact that it is a budgetary concern. But what I’m particularly flabbergasted by is the fact that we have a system in place where literally the Government is wanting to do anything, including punching down on low-paid New Zealanders, other than to improve the tax system. So I want to ask the Minister if the Minister would consider my tabled amendment that says that this bill is better called “Equal Pay (Do Anything Other Than Improve the Tax System) Amendment Bill”, or “Equal Pay (Punch Down on Low-paid New Zealanders) Amendment Bill”, because what we are seeing as a result of this bill is that there is going to be more blue, yellow, and black tapes being placed for women to have that equal pay claim. So would, then, the Minister consider my amendment, which is “Equal Pay (More Blue, Yellow, and Black Tapes) Amendment Bill? [Member stands to take a call]

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): He’s still speaking.

Sorry.

Tim van de Molen: Point of order.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): He takes a breath occasionally.

That is just some of the considerations, but—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Oh, I’ve got a point of order, sorry.

Tim van de Molen: Thank you, Madam Chair. Just with regards to the titles being proposed by the member, there is a longstanding convention that they must be genuine attempts to reframe the title of the bill in a reasonable manner. The ones that have been proposed, they’re clearly disorderly, which is actually outside the Standing Orders.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): They’ve come through the process and they’ve been approved.

Yes, thank you for raising that concern. I think whether they are in order or not will be determined as part of the voting process.

So, continuing on, let us be clear in terms of this bill. This bill is nothing short of a war on women. So I want to check with the Minister if the Minister would actually consider “Equal Pay (War on Women) Amendment Bill”, because all we are hearing from the Minister, when we are giving the Minister examples of people who have spent decades of their lives trying to fight for equal pay and equal rights for themselves, all the Minister is able to tell us is that “Oh, we really appreciate the work that they are doing and we really see them and we really care about them.” So, from my perspective, that is the equivalent of “thoughts and prayers”. So would the Minister consider my amendment “Equal Pay (Thoughts and Prayers, But Your Salary Won’t Get Higher) Amendment Bill”? Because this is what this bill is going to be doing.

But, honestly, I’m just simply at a loss for words, in terms of what this is doing, because, over and over again, we have heard, through this last day and through the debate, around the fact that this particular bill will have a detrimental effect on people—actually, not just on women; this bill will also have considerations and concerns for all workers. So this is on behalf of my colleague Francisco Hernandez, as well. Finally, would the Minister consider the “Equal Pay (War on Workers) Amendment Bill”?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will take the time to respond to a couple of the contributions that have just been made. Firstly, starting with Camilla Belich: no, I won’t be accepting the title change to the bill that the member has suggested, although I do thank the member for at least getting to the heart of the matter here, that we are not actually getting rid of the Act. I thank the member for acknowledging this, because the other member in her party—Kieran McAnulty—stood to make a contribution suggesting that we change the name of the bill to a repeal bill, but that’s not true, because we are not repealing pay equity and we are not repealing the Equal Pay Act. The title of this bill is quite correctly named because we are amending the Equal Pay Act, so it has been named accordingly as an amendment to that. That is the same answer that I have to Lawrence Xu-Nan, and his contribution on behalf of Francisco Hernandez, as well.

I have to admit, I enjoyed Jan Tinetti’s contribution, because while she started out talking about changes to the commencement date—which we won’t be making—I heard her try to rewrite history. I think that’s quite amusing, because she made a contribution suggesting that when amendments first came through this House in order to put in place a pay equity system, they were comprehensively tested, which is not true, because Labour’s amendments came through under an Amendment Paper (AP) that was rushed under urgency, without consultation. So it is quite rich of the Labour Party to stand here talking about process, when the pay equity system, with substantive policy changes to pay equity, came through an AP rushed by the Labour Party through urgency.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I, first of all, want to talk about the commencement period. There is a proposed amendment which talks about a 10-year period, and I want to argue in favour of that period. What the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety has done means that all the benefit of a 10-year period goes straight to the boss, in the law as it is. At the present time, the proposal on the Table is that the people who will suffer are the people who have been injured. So the amount of time that will elapse before someone can take a case, again, if there is sex discrimination, is going to be 10 years. During that period, no back-pay claims can be made, so they also pay the price for that full 10 years.

Is it fair that the law comes into place now and it isn’t a 10-year period—if we’re going to be fair about things? Shouldn’t we have a 10-year hiatus where we get through these claims, and they apply and we do things for 10 years, and wouldn’t it be better to commence this law after 10 years, given that the Minister’s willing to give that full freedom of 10 years to the boss and actually allow them all the benefit of discriminating for that period and deprive women in New Zealand of what they should be being paid? Effectively, the Minister’s proposals for the change in the law are saying “It’s OK to discriminate for a full 10 years, and we will take the profit. We, as the employers, will take the profit off the workers. We will discriminate—too bad; that’s what we’re going to do.”

I wondered whether the Minister might consider actually renaming this bill with a title that is perhaps reflective of what it means for women in New Zealand today. “The Mother’s Day Gift Bill” might be appropriate. Mother’s Day is this Sunday. My mother was—and I talked about this earlier—one of the women who started to work in the 1960s under a law that meant that she got paid a quarter of a male wage, and it’s those professions—she was a schoolteacher, but it happened in other professions as well—that suffered because so many women were employed on much lower wages than their male comrades. Their male comrades were paid four times more because they were assumed to have families. So what happened when that happened to them was that they dragged behind for years and years and years. So they did not save the kind of money that their male colleagues saved. They did not leave violent relationships because they could not afford to. Their children also suffered.

That is what happened and that is the history that meant we’ve had deeply unequal amounts of pay in this country. It had nothing to do with the value of their work. And it definitely had nothing to do with the term “merit”, which has been used here in a way that I hope you understand, by my contributions today, is deeply offensive to me. To suggest that somebody who’s in a profession that’s 68 percent female and has been discriminated against, and historically, all those factors mean they’re being paid less, is not a meritorious claim. That’s deeply offensive to me, and it’s deeply offensive to people like my mother, who actually fought to work for equal pay in this country and deserved better—absolutely deserved better.

I also wanted to suggest that maybe another change we could look to is a title that reflected the complete walkaway that the ACT Party has done from the capacity of people to make a contractual bargain. All these settlements were actually contracts, and people made them—blood, sweat, and tears made those contracts, those agreements. They came up with a deal. They negotiated and they came up with a deal. What the ACT Party, and this coalition Government, does today—National can’t walk away from responsibility for this—is they walk away from—they squash—that contractual freedom, all the work that went it, and all the bargains that were struck: tough.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I couldn’t listen to a second longer of that contribution—I’m sorry—especially hearing the member note offence so often in that contribution. I wanted to make it known that I personally find it offensive that we have a member who is conflating the issue of being a woman with being a mother. There are women who cannot become mothers, and there are women who have struggled to be mothers. When we have this bill talking about discrimination between men and women, we should not be trying to rename it to a “Mother’s Day Bill”, because there are so many working women in this country who are struggling to become mothers, and I personally find that hurtful.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to change the title to the “Unequal Pay Entrenchment Bill” is out of order as being merely an attempt to criticise the bill.

Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to change the title to the “Equal Pay (War on Workers) Amendment Bill” is out of order as being merely an attempt to criticise the bill

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to change the title to the “Equal Pay Regulatory Framework Amendment Bill” be agreed to.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to change the title to the “Equal Pay (More Blue, Yellow, and Black Tapes) Amendment Bill” is out of order as being merely an attempt to criticise the bill.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to change the title to the “Equal Pay (Do Anything Other Than Improve the Tax System) Amendment Bill” is out of order as being merely an attempt to criticise the bill.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to change the title to the “Equal Pay (Punch Down on Low Paid New Zealanders) Amendment Bill” is out of order as being merely an attempt to criticise the bill.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to change the title to “Equal Pay (War on Women) Amendment Bill” is out of order as being merely an attempt to criticise the bill.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to change the title to the “Equal Pay (Thoughts and Prayers But Your Salary Won’t Get Higher) Amendment Bill” is out of order as being merely an attempt to criticise the bill.

The question is that Rachel Boyack’s tabled amendment to clause 2 to replace “on the day” with “one year” be agreed to.

The question is that Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 2 to replace “on the day” with “five years” be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Ginny Andersen’s tabled amendment to clause 2 to replace “on the day” with “ten years” be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Jan Tinetti’s tabled amendment to clause 2 to replace “on the day” with “two years” be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan’s tabled amendment to clause 2 to replace “on the day” with “twenty years” be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Dr Deborah Russell’s tabled amendment to clause 2 to replace “on the day” with “six months” be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Rachel Brooking’s tabled amendment to clause 2 to replace “on the day” with “three months” be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Mr Speaker, the committee has considered the Equal Pay Amendment Bill and reports it without amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

The Equal Pay Amendment Bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading