7. Women—Gender Pay GapMARAMA DAVIDSON (Green) to the Minister for WomenWomen—Gender Pay Gap7. MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green) to the Minister for Women: What is the most recent data she's received on the gender pay gap?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Minister for Women): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. The most recent data I've seen shows that nationally women's median hourly earnings are 9.4 percent lower than men's. Despite consistent improvement in the gender pay gap in the early 2000s in recent years—in fact over the past decade—progress on closing the gender pay gap has stagnated. Women continue to be paid less than men and as of yesterday women in New Zealand are effectively working for free for the rest of the year.Marama Davidson: How does the gender pay gap specifically affect Māori and Pasifika women?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: The pay gap is even worse for Māori and Pacific women for Asian New Zealanders and for women of colour. According to Statistics New Zealand the median hourly earnings for Māori Pasifika and Asian women are between 18 and 21 percent lower than they are for men for the same quality of work even taking into account education hours worked life experience—all of those factors. There's still this huge gap. If we look at the average it's even worse. For Māori it's close to 23 percent. For Pasifika women it's nearly 28 percent. What's clear is that Māori and Pasifika women and women of colour have been working for free this year for much longer than the average woman. That's not fair and that's not right.Marama Davidson: What is she planning to do to end the gender pay gap?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Thank you Mr Speaker. This Government is committed to undertaking the work that is necessary to end structural discrimination particularly against women tangata whenua wahine Pasifika and women of colour. This Government recognises that everyone in society is better off when they all receive fair pay for their contribution and their work. So we've started by halting the previous Government's legislation that would've made it harder for women to find a clear pathway to equal pay. We'll be bringing fresh legislation into this House that will implement the agreed principles of the Joint Working Group on Pay Equity. We will lead by example by closing the pay gap in the core Public Service with a particular focus on Māori and Pasifika women and we'll be working with the private sector because there are many businesses that are already seeing the productivity benefits of measuring and closing the gender pay gap. We want to help other businesses catch up with that.Hon Paula Bennett: Can the Minister please confirm that the median gender pay gap was over 12 percent earlier this year but has closed to just over 9 percent very recently and will she be getting a 3 percent drop in the gender pay gap within the next six months?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Thank you Mr Speaker. There are different ways of measuring it and so if you measure the average pay gap it's 13.1 percent. The median pay gap is 9.4 percent. I'm not aware of the accuracy of the figures that member has proposed but I'll certainly be talking to my ministry to see if that is correct and I'm confident that with an ambitious Government that is committed to equality and not afraid of talking about the hard issues we will make enormous progress.