John MacDonald: Sort out pay equity, but don't rush it

I’m all for pay equity for women, but. Which I’ll get to.

First, though. At a public meeting in Christchurch last night, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was asked what the most important thing a Labour-led government would do for girls and women.

He said reversing last year’s pay equity changes. And that he would do it within his government’s first 100 days in office.

He said: "I think probably the most reprehensible thing I have seen in my time as a member of Parliament was the Government's decision last year with no notice, with no warning, with no consultation, to pass under urgency a law that cancelled pay equity for tens of thousands of women."

I agree with him there. The way it played out was appalling.

There were about 180,000 workers with pay equity claims underway. They were all dismissed pretty much overnight under urgency.

Hipkins went on to say: "I want to give you a reassurance that within the first 100 days we are back in Government we will reverse that change."

Adding that care and support workers will be first in the queue, because he says they have waited long enough.

That’s because when the coalition rushed through its pay equity changes, and there were those tens of thousands of workers with pay equity claims underway, about 80,000 of them were care and support workers.

It was May last year when the Government announced it was pulling the plug on any existing claims and was going to make it harder for any future claims to get through.

Saying it was doing it because the pay equity rules were “muddied and unclear”.

The truth was, it was doing it to save $12.8 billion and save Nicola Willis’ skin. Because it was just days out from the Budget.

ACT leader David Seymour was even crowing that Brooke van Velden had single-handedly rescued the Budget.

So it was smoke and mirrors and, the way it was done, was an absolute shocker.

I’m all for pay equity. I find it so dismissive of people who say “Oh yeah, equal pay and all that but, sorry girls, we just can’t afford it.”

So no argument from me that something needs to be done to make good for that appalling move by National, ACT and NZ First.

But I can’t support the way Chris Hipkins wants to go about it.

And, instead of the usual 100 days’ nonsense, I want to see this thing looked into properly.

I want to see a thorough select committee process, or something similar, used to get the facts. Which would then allow an approach to be developed to sort out real inequities in a realistic way.

So it’s a yes from me. But do it properly. Don’t rush it.

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