Bidois DanDAN BIDOIS (National—Northcote): It's a pleasure to lead off the Opposition side of this debate on what should be our last bill this evening that's debated in the House. So it's very much a pleasure and good to be discussing the Equal Pay Amendment Bill in the second reading. National will be supporting this legislation and I hope that is proof that National supports good policy regardless of where it comes from. This bill was referred to the Education and Workforce Committee in October 2018 so this Government has had nearly two years in which to sort this bill out and it surprises me that we've now got news that a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) will be dropped to tidy up this bill and make it more consistent with the Employment Relations Act.Again this is a lack of process and I asked I think in previous readings why this bill was being delayed. They had a bill that my colleague Denise Lee had submitted and they pretty much took 90 percent of that bill and wrote their own law based on that. Now we've lost two years and now we've got further changes to this law that are being proposed. Look all I can say is that's a lost opportunity. It's a lost opportunity for the many thousands of women out there who do suffer from pay discrimination and unfortunately this Government has again failed to deliver on that.The Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Iain Lees-Galloway is in the House and he's saying he's progressing other bills but this Government has progressed other bills this week around prisoners' voting rights around making sure wellbeing is at the heart of the Public Finance Act so that should tell you where the priorities of this Government are at. They've sat on this bill they've extended this process and they could have made much more progress to date.Look anyway National supports the kaupapa or the purpose of this bill: essentially to make sure that women are paid an equal amount for work of equal value—that is the kaupapa and the spirit in which my colleague Denise drafted her member's bill which this Government voted down over 2½ years ago and then resubmitted 90 percent of that bill later. So it's a really important bill that has an important purpose and seeks to outline a process for women in sectors where they feel that they have been historically underpaid to go through and make those claims and resolve those claims.I do want to acknowledge the gender gap that exists in New Zealand. In 1998 that gender gap was about 16 percent. As of last year that gap was reduced somewhat to 9.3 percent but there's much more work to do. I want to acknowledge all the thousands of businesses out there that are—independently of the Government and of this law—trying to make strides in that area. Certainly I think it's reflected that it's not just legislation it's actually the wider mood of the public and customers who are driving companies to for example report their own gender pay gap and in a transparent manner try to address that as well.But this bill is important. It's important as a signalling tool to companies and to workers out there that if you are women and you do work of equal value to men then you should be paid the same amount. So that and the spirit of the law we support. Just to run through quickly the process for pay equity claims. So the criterion that's been determined is around work predominantly performed by female employees. In the select committee we've changed that slightly to be 60 percent—to basically put a value on it. So if you're in a sector where at least 60 percent or more of workers are traditionally women then that meets the criteria but you can't raise a claim if an employer has already extended previous claims to their workers. So that is again another criteria that must be fulfilled.This law provides essentially a process for workers to go through to raise a claim but then work through that claim until it's been resolved. I'm glad the Minister talked about the dispute resolution process and trying to make sure that that is smooth and consistent with the Employment Relations Act. So there is a really good process that's in place in terms of bargaining and settling pay equity claims and providing a dispute resolution process for that.National's position is clear—that we link pay to the value that's been created regardless of which gender you are. So if you are out there in a job and you are performing a function then regardless of whether you're a man or a woman you should be paid the same amount. There are historic reasons why market rates for pay may be discriminated against or may be different for gender. Part of that is bias and part of that is historical and that's what this bill seeks to address and we certainly are supportive of it.So look without further ado I guess we look forward to seeing the SOP and to be able to scrutinise that. As I said this House has actually had quite a substantial amount of time to address this bill—well over two years—and now we're at the stage in urgency of discussing changes that are going to be made later on in the process. So I look forward to seeing the SOP as soon as we can and we on this side of the House will certainly scrutinise that closely to make sure that it provides a smooth process for going through pay equity claims and addresses the issues that have been identified. So look it's a privilege to be leading this discussion on the Opposition side and as a man in this position it's certainly a great privilege to be able to address this because certainly there are thousands of men that want to see women of equal value paid the same amount as well. So without much more time at this very late hour of the evening National will support this bill into law and we commend this bill to the House.