Unofficial People's Select Committee starts pay equity hearings
Photo:
Supplied
A former National Party MP says a committee hearing held on Monday would help form evidence not collected during the government's repeal of fair pay legislation.
In May, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden announced a reversal of pay equity laws passed in 2020, saying they had become too loose.
The changes were passed under urgency.
Former National MP Dame Marilyn Waring has spearheaded the creation of the
People's Select Committee
, an unofficial committee that has the aim to provide evidence that was not obtained by the government during the passing of its laws.
Former politicians that were involved with the committee were Jackie Blue, Jo Hayes and Belinda Vernon from National, Nanaia Mahuta, Lianne Dalziel, Steve Chadwick and Lynne Pillay from Labour, Ria Bond from New Zealand First and Sue Bradford from the Greens.
The first hearing for the group was held on Monday morning in the National Library in Wellington.
Waring told
Nine to Noon
the debate that was held under urgency was not enough.
"There was simply no substance to it, I thought that there was so much also misunderstanding in the community."
She said that if the group could collect all the data and evidence on the matter people could make up their minds on the changes.
There needed to be an assessment of how peoples' rights may have been removed, Waring said.
"One of the obvious ones where the particular employment now has to be 70 percent women means that teaching for example may fall out of being able to make any pay equity claim."
She said that 12 hearings would be done, with a report on those expected to be published in January.
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