Marilyn Waring: Why I convened the people's select committee on pay equity

The Spinoff

11-06-2025

When it became clear the government had chosen ideology over evidence in its rushed-through changes to the pay equity system, former National MP Marilyn Waring decided to do something about it.
I had tuned in to parliament to listen to the Equal Pay Amendment Bill debate on pay equity, and I didn't have to listen for very long to know there was no evidence to back this change in law.
I sought to confirm this by going online and finding the parliamentary link to the legislation website. You look for the departmental disclosure statement and click on this link. After the general policy statement and the explanatory note, you get to part two: background material and policy information. (Yes, if they wanted you to find this it would be easier to access.) But you need to know this, because this is where you find out if anything other than ideology informed the changes in legislation. It operates as a mini audit, asking key questions that should have been part of the evidence for the change. In this case, it is a very rewarding quest.
The first of the audit questions asks, 'Are there any publicly available inquiry, review or evaluation reports that have informed, or are relevant to, the policy to be given effect by this bill?' The answer is 'Yes', and three pieces of research work are referenced. Two of these are totally opposed to the changes in the bill: a report (by rigorous researchers) for the Human Rights Commission on pay equity and care workers, and a report by Research NZ that monitors social workers and employers before and after their pay equity settlement. Nothing in this report supports the changes, especially the response from employers.
The other report was commissioned by Health NZ and the terms of reference were written by Health NZ. The researchers report that 'not enough evidence was received to fully answer the terms of reference'; many documents were not provided, and the wider context of the pay equity system could not be included in the report. This is the sole supporting evidence furnished to support the legislation.
No regulatory impact statement was provided by MBIE. There was no analysis of 'the potential for any group of persons to suffer a substantial unavoidable loss of income or wealth', (due to 'ministerial time constraints'), but apparently there was analysis of 'the size of potential costs and benefits'. This is an entertaining 'yes', as for a number of years pay equity found itself listed among the 'unquantifiable fiscal risks' along with natural disasters and Treaty settlements. So … how come we went from an unquantifiable fiscal risk to billions of dollars, and which wizards hiding where (I suspect Treasury) just made up the figures – because they don't add up!
The next question in the disclosure statement is about New Zealand's international obligations and whether the bill is consistent with these. Oh dear: it's 2025 and the assessors in MBIE and MFAT looked at International Labour Organisation conventions and trade obligations, but didn't mention the Convention on all Forms of Discrimination against Women, so the answer is wrong.
Then there's the mystery of what happened to the attorney general's advice to parliament on whether any provisions of the bill limit any of the rights and freedoms in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. The site claims that there was such advice from the Ministry of Justice, so I scurried off to their site to find the Section 7 report – nothing there. How surprising.
Next there is the claim that there was no 'external consultation on the policy to be given effect by the bill, or on a draft of this bill'. I seriously doubt this, and we will just wait for some loose lips in the post-budget estimates debates to reveal this. The government did, however, test the policy details with the Public Service Commission (where the pay equity group was disbanded in June 2024), Health NZ, the Ministry of Education and the Treasury. So, the government talked to itself, and what's more, every time they say 'employers', they are talking about themselves.
In the absence of evidence for the debate we endured the lazy, specious, headline-grabbing and truly ignorant remarks about the comparators used in pay equity settlement. A comparison between social workers and air traffic controllers was one often quoted. I taught in the four-year Bachelor of Social Work, and the further one to two years for a Master of Social Work, at Massey University. Wherever I look on the web (New Zealand, Australia, UK), the skills and knowledge required for air traffic controllers are concentration, using judgment and making decisions, ability to work well under pressure, excellent verbal communication skills, problem solving, and paying attention to detail. In Aotearoa the qualifications can be gained in less than a year, at much less cost than a four-year social work degree. Understanding what a social work qualification means, I would happily employ a social worker as an air traffic controller but never contemplate the reverse.
The minister claimed to be 'progressing this bill under urgency because we have to move quickly to make the changes to the act to ensure that the system is workable and sustainable'. No evidence whatsoever was presented to show the system was unworkable and unsustainable. Fourteen claims had been very well settled.
Ideology was the only arbiter for these rubbish claims.
I'm a researcher and I like to see evidence for such significant changes that continue to exploit women – an exploitation that has been present for my lifetime. I wondered what device could be used to collect that evidence. I began to call retired women MPs to see if they would join me in a people's select committee. We were set up in five days.
The people's select committee is calling for submissions now – the deadline for written submissions is July 31, and oral submissions will begin on August 11. We will uncover and report on the information that should have been before any responsible government before the passage of such legislation, and we will make this available to all in Aotearoa.