Bidois Dan; Rurawhe AdrianDAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): Fakalofa atu and happy Niue Language Week Mr Assistant Speaker. I'd just like to also say a very special hello to my nephew—my godson Zion who is part Niuean—at home: I hope you're doing well and building on your Niuean language skills this week. It is my pleasure to take a call on the Equal Pay Amendment Bill and to represent the other side that is the side of men who want to see women in New Zealand paid the equal value for the work that they do. It's a privilege certainly for the member for Northcote which is where I represent—I certainly want women to be paid the equal value not just in Northcote but of course in New Zealand.I want to respond firstly to the dribble that I just heard from the Government benches. This member Marja Lubeck talked about what's dreadful. I tell you what's dreadful is that we've lost 12 months of equal pay claims because this Government decided to turn down not one but two bills of a similar nature just so they could bring their own bill to the House today. I just think that's a waste of time and it's disappointing for the women of New Zealand who have lost that opportunity to take their claims under what is I think a very good bill and we'll be supporting it at that.I do want to commend the Minister the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Iain Lees-Galloway for bringing this bill to the House. Its purpose just to remind those watching at home is to eliminate and prevent discrimination based on sex and that discrimination in respect of remuneration or any other conditions of employment whether it be fringe benefits and the like and in doing so to promote an enduring settlement of claims related to sexual discrimination.I do want to acknowledge that there is a problem and although we have made progress—having a gender pay gap nationally going from 16.3 percent in 1998 down to a lower rate of 9.2 percent in 2018—there is much more to do on this. I do want to acknowledge that the problem exists not just at the company level but also at the industry level and at the country-wide level as well. I come from the private sector and I have had many colleagues who believe that they have been unfairly discriminated against in terms of their pay but they haven't had the right mechanism to address that. I certainly know that they will be supporting a bill like this through the House.I do want to acknowledge though the work that is being done by the many businesses throughout New Zealand to address the pay gap for women in New Zealand. I come from a big four" accounting firm and they have made big strides in not only publishing and making widely available their pay gap by tenure in organisations but actively trying to promote cases where they can reduce the gap in gender pay. So I think something we are proud of in the National Party is that it's not all up to Government legislation to address these problems. I do want to acknowledge the many businesses that are taking strides and making headway and I think that from a values perspective we want to see more of these businesses make strides in the future with respect to gender pay.I do want to just explain a little bit about the bill as I see it for the people at home. Absolutely an advantage of this bill is that it does make strides towards closing the gender pay gap. It provides a clear and step-by-step process by which people who are not happy with their pay or who feel like they're being discriminated against can take their claim and make that widely shared. I want to distinguish three general buckets if you please of claims that the bill makes reference to. The first is around equal pay claims which are claims of discrimination with respect to the dollar remuneration. There's also unlawful discrimination claims that this bill also makes clear which is discrimination based particularly around the fringe benefits and other conditions of employment as well. Finally there's the pay equity claim which is a rate of remuneration paid for work that is mostly performed by females that is less than male-dominated professions of equal value. Currently the Equal Pay Act is not equipped to deal with this and so we in the National Party recognise that this bill in fact provides a mechanism for claims in any of these three scenarios to be brought forward and resolved in a timely and accurate manner.Why do I support this bill? I support this bill to select committee because I'm proud that our party supports equal opportunity and equal reward for work of equal value. We in the National Party encourage people to strive and we encourage people to use their best talents to the fullest whatever your gender. Women deserve equal pay of equal value and I want to acknowledge of course that we celebrated Suffrage Day so it's not lost on me the importance of this bill at such a time that we celebrate such a momentous occasion. But the current process is difficult it's often expensive and it's cumbersome. I think the case of Terranova Homes and Care and the service and food workers' union which Kristine Bartlett led so amicably demonstrated that we absolutely need to look at ways to make this a lot better—it's certainly cumbersome and expensive and risky—and that's what this bill does. It allows claims to be put forward and addressed in a timely manner and this bill identically addresses that.I do want to raise one very important note which is: why didn't the Government support previous bills like this one? As my colleague Denise Lee said 90 percent of this bill is exactly the same as my colleague Denise Lee's member's bill that was put forward in the House several months ago. Why did this Government not support that bill? What about the—[Interruption] I'd call the members to outline it because it's not clear. I've listened to every speech in the House tonight and it's still not clear to me why a bill that was 90 percent of this bill wasn't taken forward to select committee which you guys could have made amendments to. They have the overwhelming majority on that committee and unfortunately they didn't choose to do that.Simeon Brown: Underwhelming. DAN BIDOIS: Underwhelming. They also rejected a bill that we had put forward in the name of the Hon Michael Woodhouse which again was very similar and there's no evidence to suggest that they've done this for any other reason than that they want to claim the credit for this bill. I say to them shame on them—that's 12 months when women could have been able to advance their claim under this bill and unfortunately tonight we're 12 months into that delay.National supports good bills regardless of where they come from. We have supported the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership legislation which is now going through the House. We've supported the military justice legislation. We're going to support the zero carbon bill. We in the National Party don't care if the Government gets the credit. We're prepared to take pride for the benefit of New Zealanders so that they can have—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired."