Mike's Minute: What's not being said about pay equity

Marilyn Waring. Remember her?

Once an activist always an activist.

Marilyn took it upon herself to form her own select committee and she and a bunch of other MPs and interested parties opened their doors for submissions on pay equity and the changes the Government made that they didn’t like.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Can we find the money for the pay equity scheme?

So, the People’s Select Committee of former MPs has reported back today and, completely unsurprisingly, has slammed the Government for scrapping the pay equity law last year.

Which is fair enough in some ways, it was a shoddy process. The MPs say it offends the rule of law and they’re probably right.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The polls revealed how people felt about the pay equity saga

We've had a case of conflicting polls over the last twenty-four hours, with two completely different Governments predicted.

But if there's one thing you can take from these polls, which they both agree on, it's that the pay equity revamp hasn’t turned into the circuit breaker that the left clearly thought it was going to be.

Kevin: The Quagmire of Pay Equity

I’ve been reluctant to wade into the whole pay equity quagmire, but it’s actually quite easy. But first…

 

Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden said under the previous rules, claims were “able to progress without strong evidence of undervaluation”, or without proving the difference in pay was “due to sex-based discrimination or other factors”.

Damien Grant: Brooke Van Velden is one of a handful of ministers directly combatting NZ’s decline

We all know what to do, we just don't know how to get re-elected after we've done it” is attributed to former Luxenberg Prime Minister and European Union head Jean-Claude Juncker.

Juncker was referring to the crisis in the Eurozone some two decades past. I don’t know enough about that period to comment further but keep his wisdom in mind as we concentrate on the here and now.

Let’s focus on this week’s heroine; Brooke van Velden, who brought this nation to attention with her response to Stuff columnist’s Andrea Vance’s colourful characterisation of herself, Nicola Willis and others.

Yvonne Van Dongen: The Guilty Leftist

“I don’t believe in pay equity. There - I’ve said it.”

This admission in a text from a friend this week made me laugh. This is what passes for scandalous these days for those of us formerly of the left. Having been catapulted out from our tribe courtesy their gender ideological erasure of women, we don’t know what to think anymore. Gone is the set menu of acceptable views we once unthinkingly shared, gone is the certainty that our side were the kind folk and gone are the kind folk tbh. Not so kind when you don’t agree with them.

Peter Hemmingson: Pay Equity Racket

It is disappointing to see ACT’s Brooke van Velden going into bat for tweaking pay equity legislation rather than for blowing it out of the water altogether.

In the annals of modern political fiction, few narratives are more intellectually bankrupt—and more persistently weaponised—than the myth of the gender pay gap. 

Mike's Minute: My take on the c-word debate

First, a small update on what I said yesterday on pay equity.

My gut says it won't damage the Government.

Don’t get me wrong – if I was the opposition I would be prosecuting this as hard as I could, the way they are, because they have a genuine issue and ongoing issue, at least until the Budget, that they quite rightly believe is there for the taking in terms of points, headlines, and moral high ground.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The Government will pay for the pay equity drama in a big way

Let me make a prediction for you on this pay equity drama that's been playing out for the last 24 hours - the Government is going to pay for this in a big way.

I reckon that this could become one of the defining moments of this Government when we look back on it in years to come.

Kerre Woodham: This Government has a problem with optics

Just when I thought the issue of pay parity couldn't get any more confusing, the Government has made it so. Yesterday, the coalition government moved under urgency in Parliament to raise the threshold for proving work has been historically undervalued when making a pay equity claim. Under the new legislation, any current claims would be stopped and need to restart under the new higher threshold to show genuine gender discrimination and make sure the comparator settings were right. So 33 current claims will be stopped as a result. ACT’s deputy leader and Minister for Workplace Relations Brooke Van Velden, the architect of the bill, said she supported pay equity, but the legislation introduced back in 2020 was problematic.

Mike's Minute: Reform for the Pay Equity Act is good

Kristine Bartlett was, to many, a hero.

She was a very likeable woman. She was a caregiver who argued her work was undervalued and she deserved more.

The Labour Party who love “feels” and are not exactly unfamiliar with the unions leapt all over it and the Equal Pay Act 2022 was born.

Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Will the pay equity claim shake-up save us money?

That decision today to stop all those pay equity claims is ballsy - I mean, you know, ballsy is good - and I think I lean towards thinking this is the right thing to do.

Those pay equity claims have been a bit random. I don't know if you know how this works, but basically, if people can prove that they're underpaid because they work in women-dominated jobs, then they can get a pay rise.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 2/10/23

Verrall is chuffed by govt’s latest push into pay equity while Woods enthuses about an $11m spend on EV chargers

The headline on a ministerial press statement curiously expresses the government’s position when it declares: Government shows further commitment to pay equity for healthcare workers.

Is it not enough to declare just one commitment?

Or is the government’s commitment to pay equity being declared sector by sector?