Lies damned lies and Pay Equity Repeal excuses
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- Date published:
9:27 am, May 7th, 2025 - 27 comments
Categories: chris hipkins, Christopher Luxon, discrimination, Politics, spin, uncategorized, Unions, workers' rights -
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Remember how last election National continuously talked about wasteful spending and getting the books back in order?
Well yesterday it showed what it thinks wasteful spending is. Paying women in poorly paid but skilled jobs properly.
Christopher Luxon tried to, without success, misrepresent the motivation for the change.
As shown by this exchange in Parliament.
Hipkins: Was the budgetary cost of settling pay equity claims considered when the Government made this decision?
Luxon: No. This is about making sure that this legislation is actually fit for purpose and it’s actually much more sustainable, workable, and less complex.
This matched Luxon’s earlier claim to media that the change had “nothing to do with the Budget, this is about making sure we have a piece of legislation that is incredibly workable and not as complex as it has been.”
Luxon’s problem is that David Seymour had just crowed that the Bill would save the Budget.
Luxon’s answer in the House was that unbelievable that he had to seek leave to amend his answer and he subsequently said this:
I was asked whether the budgetary cost of settling pay equity claims was considered when the Government made this decision. What I should have said was that while Cabinet received advice on a range of considerations, our primary motivation was ensuring the regime would be more robust, workable, and sustainable.
His initial answer was gibberish. Of course the Government considered the budgetary cost of crashing the Pay Equity settlements. And according to Seymour it was a primary motivation.
If this was about improving the system then the bill could have been introduced and sent to a select committee. Or it could have been pared back. The claims that had been settled where female participation is over 70% of the total sector workforce could have been preserved. The comprehensive destruction of existing claims was not necessary unless the only consideration was budgetary.
And the threshold change is weird. Normally if you have an arguable case you can take it to court. Changing the threshold to having merit is strange and unduly restrictive.
No Regulatory Impact Statement was produced. And the Bill of Rights advice was signed by Judith Collins herself. How she could determine that the bill did not breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act provision against discrimination is beyond my comprehension.
To add to the sense of unreality yesterday National announced the introduction of a Private Members Bill to regulate use of social media by under 16 year olds. And it also planned under urgency to pass the Wildlife (Authorisations) Amendment Bill, the remaining stages of the Social Security Amendment Bill, the second reading of the Racing Industry Amendment Bill and the Employment Relations (Pay Deductions for Partial Strikes) Amendment Bill.
The one good think about yesterday is that the prospects of this Government being tossed out next election just increased. But the next time any National MP claims they support fair pay for women please remind them about yesterday’s events.
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I have to pinch myself that this foolish government thinks it's going to get away with this new pay-equity scheme. Mine was the last generation of young women who grew up accepting as inevitable we would earn less than our male counterparts. We were brought up to believe it was the way things were, so there was no use getting hot and bothered about it. As a former public servant for around 35 years, some of us did get 'hot and bothered' but our superiors got around that one by promoting our male colleagues ahead of us, even when their output was less than satisfactory.
The times have changed and hallelujah to that.
They have just delivered a massive broadside to the majority of women in this country and those women will make them pay for it! Serves them bloody well right!
"those women will make them pay for it! "
But will they really?
Not having a crack at you but I think Trumps next brain fart will dominate the next news cycle, peoples SM feeds and the useful distraction he is willing continue.
I really hope I'm wrong, but despite many events that are beyond the pale, not much more than a whimper from the unions or the opposition.
Christopher, David, Winston… you've just signed your way out of running for the next election.
THIS IS A GROSS ABUSE OF POWER.
We can probably add this to list of things Labour should have sorted whilst they had the opportunity…
National is undermining and wrecking the system that Labour put in place. It was already sorted.
Julie Anne Genter was the initial sponsor of the bill as Minister for Women
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/equal-pay-amendment-bill-passes-unanimous-support
Blaming labour for national acts, you remind of those fullas who say she shouldn't have been dressed that way.
No government drafting of legislation involved.
This is a last minute idea brought before the House on the same day as their elimination of the 2020 pay equity legislation under urgency.
I guess this is supposed to bind the 45% of women who voted for a coalition party – something cheap and affordable is being done to make them feel their kids are being looked after.
If that is enough for them, then they have no solidarity with the other women being impacted. Are they class war loyal, or of a greater solidarity with social and economic justice for women and other families in society.
"…signed by Judith Collins herself. How she could determine that the bill did not breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act provision against discrimination is beyond my comprehension"
I am duty bound to remind you that:
"Offices of the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General have been implicated in what a Royal Commission calls a ‘cover-up’ of torture and sexual abuse of children in the custody of the state"
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/10/14/crown-cover-up-when-the-state-turned-on-its-victims/
Collins doing an Officer Barbrady (nothing to see here) and sticking the boot in to thousands of women so landlords get their handouts is easily comprehended.
Changes made include
Delays to making a claim and then further delays to enacting any settlement.
https://archive.li/QFTAk#selection-4737.3-4743.43
Process.
Rushed through under urgency, so they can save their budget
No RIS to enable informed debate.
Retrospective.
Comment
https://archive.li/LYvFI#selection-3905.0-4050.1
Most of these women work for Government Departments or Government contracts.
Today this Government showed their incompetence and how they cover it, led by Willis Collins and Van Velden. These three women with help from Seymour have helped steer a loosely drafted bill through a farcical examination under urgency.
Sign the Petition.
Design memes. "CoC want to pay women less."
"CoC make them await equity another 10 years"
"Women vote this disgusting lot out"
National did this because their budget was in a mess.
ACT did it because they wanted to.
NZF agreed to something not in the coalition agreement as part of some deal we do not know about. This same party was in a coalition with little movement of the MW 1996-1999 (as now 2023-2026) and then while there continued market rents for state housing. How does the unionist at their conference feel about that now?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/560239/listen-live-brooke-van-velden-on-pay-equity-law-changes
33 claims were extinguished and they will have to start again. Deliberate delay of justice, is called what in legal terms?
The new legislation unlike that in 2017 has this clause
See link 6 above.
Thus a bankrupt government that will not tax the wealthy will pose as a poorly run company and delay obligation, all so those who finance the three stooges get their way instead.
It is rather simple – the troika of low wage economy wants to suppress/kill off any successful process that corrects the undervaluation of women's work.
Paying cleaners, caregivers, nurses etc for what their work is worth undermines the economic subjugation that they wish to maintain by having low wages that it is impossible to live on.
Whilst nurses in Te Whatu Ora have a deserved pay equity settlement, Mr "I used to run an airline" promised in an election debate to have pay parity for all nurses.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/election-2023-promises-for-nurses-pay-child-poverty-reduction-bowel-cancer-screening-chris-and-chris-come-to-life-in-fiery-leaders-debate/D47CDSHRN5AFNGS6EZGN6JGV6Q/
He of course has not done it and unfortunately (not!) for him pay parity for nurses is not changed by the hatchet job done on pay equity
We have a crisis in primary care, lack of funding.
And the nurses in primary care are often now seeking jobs in hospitals (better pay).
The government is now fully absent in both areas.
We have a crises in health as 18 months of not hiring but firing comes home to roost.
That and the clear signals from minister Brown about pay and conditions sees more depart never to return.
2. Maybe the opposition MPs could drop MPs bills into the ballot box – all different but all with championing pay equity at the core. Then let the government redemonstrate it's true colours closer to election time, or accept that this was a poor decision.
Treasury: iceberg dead ahead! The budget is sinking by the head. The great ship Aotearoa you said was unsinkable will be 12k below the waterline in a couple of hours!!
Captain Luxon: lower the lifeboats and put all the men you can find into them. Women and children go last. I’m going to my cabin, where the press can’t find me.
"Does that member define a woman as someone who gets paid less?"
Good burn from Hipkins to Peters in Parliament last night.
Funny how they always know what is a woman when they want to pay them less.
Pay equity for women ? No problem P.M. Luxon. Just wave the magic wand like you did for the defence force in raising $ 12 billion .
2023 leaders debate when challenged on pay for nurses in nz Luxon promised to pay nurses the same regardless of what sector they workes in
2025 overnight Luxon changes pay equity and cancels a number of nursing pay equity claims that would have substantially solved issue of differing pay rates across different sectors.
Easy to promise anything to get elected, easy to forget it seems
"You will do that if you win?" Paddy Gower asked Luxon
"Yes!" Luxon replied
https://www.youtube.com/live/NAXkCQu_hhc?si=Q7oqdgQiy9cp6EhS&t=2355
Luxon lying.
https://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=160625
Luxon has less than 2 years to keep his promise to pay primary care nurses and aged care nurses the same as those in hospitals.
The repeal of the 2020 legislation makes this near impossible and that was a deliberate action.