‘Forgotten Where They All Came From': Councilor Lashes Out Over Pay Equity
The new committee is spearheaded by former National MP Dame Marilyn Waring, with its members all volunteering their time.
An Invercargill councillor says the people who made changes to the Equal Pay Act have forgotten where they came from.
Former-New Zealand First MP Ria Bond made the comments after it was revealed she was one of 10 former female MPs joining the 'People's Select Committee on Pay Equity'.
The unofficial committee went public on Monday with its plan to take submissions and examine changes to the Act, which were passed under urgency earlier this month.
The changes make it more difficult for those who believe they are being unfairly paid to make a claim.
'(I) just feel really let down by this Government and the way that they chose to have it go under no scrutiny and through urgency, with no input from anyone that actually works in these sectors,' Bond said.
'I think they've forgotten where they all come from.'
The new committee is spearheaded by former National MP Dame Marilyn Waring, with its members all volunteering their time.
Bond was pleased the group had formed, and said it showed the power of people to 'make a movement when things are so drastically wrong'.
Waring and Bond are joined by former Labour MPs Lianne Dalziel, Steve Chadwick, Nanaia Mahuta and Lynne Pillay; former National MPs Jackie Blue, Jo Hayes and Belinda Vernon; and former Green MP Sue Bradford.
Waring told reporters earlier today there was a good spread of women who wanted to hear the evidence Parliament should have heard.
They would reach out to key parties that previously submitted on the legislation as well as 33 groups whose claims were affected by the changes, she said.
Submissions to the committee are open until 31 July with an initial hearing to be held in Wellington on 11 August.
More hearings will be announced at a later date with a draft report prepared before the end of the year.
Bond was a member of parliament with New Zealand First from 2015 to 2017. She was elected to Invercargill City Council in 2022.
Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden announced the changes to the pay equity process earlier this month.
Claims have been able to progress without strong evidence of undervaluation and there have been very broad claims where it is difficult to tell whether differences in pay are due to sex-based discrimination or other factors, she said at the time.
The changes include raising the threshold of professions predominantly performed by female employees from 60 percent to 70 percent.
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That can feel like it goes for everything from charter schools to climate change obligations to LGBTQ rights to tax reform. Each is of consuming interest to various people; yet if you hold a contrary (or even unsure) view on any topic – especially if you're crazy enough to air it – you're at risk of being tossed from the group. To be clear, there is a proportion of the online right which is gleefully encouraging this dynamic, beckoning with open arms to anyone who might feel unwelcome on the left despite agreeing with the majority of its stances. They're beyond activists' control, however – unlike the current progressive approach to persuasion. In his conversation with McBride, podcast host Ezra Klein argued that the absolutist approach to argument has come from 'the movement of politics to these very unusually designed platforms of speech, where what you do really is not talk to people you disagree with but talk about people you disagree with to people you do agree with.' Platforms like Facebook, X and Instagram incentivise the production of content which stakes out increasingly extreme positions, because a more moderate (and often popular to general audiences, according to polling) stance is unlikely to provoke the engagement that expands the reach of any given post. It leads to a paradox, whereby extremely online coalitional activists of both sides draw their parties to ever more fringe positions. The reason it seems to be more damaging to the left's intentions is that even quiet observers of these hard lines can be made to feel rejected. Those on the right are harangued and insulted, but there is less intimation from their peers that they are no longer welcome – just that they're an idiot. There might be good reasons for a high threshold to acceptance: solidarity among different causes is a fundamental tenet of many reforming organisations, from unions to NGOs. But it does have a troublesome interaction with democracy, in that demanding agreement with every joined up position inevitably means losing some small but meaningful support. It's hard to win an election that way, particularly on a national rather than citywide scale. It's a more vexing problem for the left, because it is progressives who seek change most profoundly. The conservative part of the right is about the status quo, seeking to defend an existing position, or return to an imagined vision of the past. The left seeks progress – to change the future. In this way, persuasion matters more, which is why it's strange that it is often practised less, and exists within a framework which allows for little dissent. Is there a better way? There is a deep disdain for moderates or incrementalism today across all sides – big centrist parties have either been hauled to the fringes or seen more radical parties make big gains, if not usurp them entirely. It's easier to describe another approach than perform it, and would require a major change in the philosophy and style of our current politics, and it's made far harder by social platforms which are so resistant to that approach. Yet it's worth at least considering. Activists of many stripes might believe that their goals are sufficiently important as to justify staking out positions well away from public opinion, and sometimes seem indifferent to the fact their actions seem to make their causes less popular. Think of Extinction Rebellion protestors gluing themselves to motorways or splashing paint on artworks, even as the politics of climate change regress, in near lockstep with the more disruptive demonstrations. It's deeply unfashionable (I look forward to the comments lol), but maybe the best way to achieve small yet lasting gains is step back from expectation of perfect policy – at least for now. Holding out for them feels crucial, but if the way you're going about it makes the position less popular, maybe it's worth arguing for something more achievable, to take that first step. In the hope it might actually change a mind, and get you incrementally closer to what you really want, rather than ever further away.
