Pansy Wong in the House on Wednesday on the gender wage gap: “It was the case that the gap was between men and women was at 12% since 2001. After 18 months of the National Government the pay gap is now 11%.”
Um. No it isn’t.
Who knows where Pansy Wong got her numbers from. She gives no source. I however can give you a source – the quarterly earnings and employment survey – and from it we can see the average hourly wage rates for men and women. Divide the latter by the former and you have the average female hourly wage as a percentage of the average male hourly wage, take that away from 1 and you have the gender wage gap.
Gap in 2008: 12.3%. Gap in 2009, 12.4%. Gap in first quarter of 2010, 12.3%. I can’t even see any English-esque statistical trick or misrepresentation that turns the gap to 11%. And you can clearly see the wage gap closing under Labour’s tenure.
Hmm. Looks like Pansy Wong is full of crap. When are these Nats going to learn that in the age of the Internet and publicly accessible statistics you can’t just lie and expect to get away with it?
Incredibly, Wong goes on to give the credit for this closing of the gap to the Government 2010 Budget – that’s right the wage gap in the past is affected by something (exactly what, we’re not told) in the Budget for the 2010-11 year. A Budget that hasn’t even started yet has affected the past.
Pansy Wong is paid $240,000 a year and we spent $77,000 in the first three months of this year on her expenses. Feel like you’re getting value for money?
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