Lubeck MarjaMARJA LUBECK (Labour): Tēnā koe Madam Deputy Speaker. Thank you and I am rising to take a call on the Employment (Pay Equity and Equal Pay) Bill. I would have really liked to support this bill drawn in the name of the member Denise Lee. I think she's actually a good sort. We work together quite collegially in the select committee. But not this bill I'm sorry.This bill is a dog's breakfast and this bill has been before the House before. I remember taking part in an equal pay rally in August 2017 and the women were absolutely outraged with this bill. They didn't have the wool pulled over their eyes. They knew damn well that this bill was not a good bill. Someone referred to it as a turd wrapped in glitter and I have to agree with that.So about pay equity—everybody here agrees I'm sure that the gender pay gap is not acceptable. It's the result of decades of discrimination and prejudice. Work that includes a caring component is just paid less because it's seen as women's work. So it was great to see predominantly women 55000 last year in caring roles—aged care disability and home support—receive a pay increase when Kristine Bartlett and the union E tū won their case through the courts. This is why I was quite astonished that the member Michael Woodhouse asked us to question whether this Government was going to force the women to go through courts when the previous Government supported the employers appealing against the Terranova case all the way to the Supreme Court. So it's a little bit rich to throw it back this way.But what wasn't great was that after the low-paid women who put heart and soul into some of the most difficult work that is being done in society—they won their settlement after fighting all the way through the courts and what did the previous Government do straight away? They enacted legislation to try and force it through with a one-vote majority—one vote—in July 2017 and had they been successful the legislation that had then gone through the House would have eroded and undermined the actual settlement. But luckily we had a change of Government and the bill was withdrawn. But today unfortunately through the members' bill process we see the hideous bill back before the House. Now I have gone through this bill painstakingly to try and find a difference—one difference with the previous bill—and I didn't find any at all. Actually no I should apologise there's one on page one where it says Denise Lee instead of Michael Woodhouse. So that's the difference that I did find.What it would do if we revive this bill is it would keep women on low rates. Now I'll explain because I think what has been kept from some of the members on the other side of the House is the big problem with this bill is in clause 24. So if you look at Identifying appropriate comparators" what this section of the bill does is it forces women through their unions to firstly identify appropriate male comparators in their employer's business then similar businesses to their employer then the same sector or industry and only then according to this bill could they use comparators outside their industry. I know that the member Michael Woodhouse back in July called this a very straightforward and practical process but what I've just run you through hardly sounds like a practical process to me. This bill would've made it much harder for employees to file pay equity claims directly and it would've slowed down significantly any of these pay equity claims.So just to reiterate this bill before us today is exactly the same bill as the previous Government tried to rush through. It's not practical it's not fair and it's actually completely inconsistent with the court decisions. It's not consistent with the recommendations from that working group that the member Michael Woodhouse referred to. It's actually omitted the recommendations made by that joint working group.The previous National Government has pretended it's leading the way but it's only because they have to. They have to because they couldn't win in court so they made this legislation which basically does the opposite from what the agreement had done. It does not support women it does the opposite. This coalition Government has already reconvened that joint working group on equal pay. They've reported back with recommendations and these recommendations are going to be very soon considered at Cabinet. What will happen from that process is that that will result in a much better bill. So I have great pleasure to not recommend this bill. Thank you."