Martin TraceyTRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to oppose this bill. We will oppose this bill because it does not do what women fought for it to do. It does not do what the working party asked for it to do and agreed that it would do—and Business New Zealand was part of that working group. It sets about to do away with the Equal Pay Act of 1972 rather than just amend it. It throws the baby out with the bathwater. As both Jan Logie and Jacinda Ardern have articulated very accurately it sets in the way larger barriers for women to jump over.I want to read just a little bit from the bill itself. Clause 17 provides that An employer who receives a pay equity claim must … decide whether in the employer's view [it] has merit." I want you to just picture this for a moment. A woman goes to an employer and says: "I think you're paying me less than my male counterparts for a job I do just as well in exactly the same way for exactly the same number of hours with exactly the same skills." The employer under this piece of legislation—under clause 17—can have a think about it and say: "Well I don't think it has merit so I don't think I'm going to accept that."Clause 17 goes on to say that the decision must be made by the employer as to whether it has merit and the claimant must be notified—which is nice—of the decision "as soon as is reasonably practicable" and "not later than 90 days" after the employer receives the claim. Let us just remember that 90 days is 3 months.Now I want you to picture this. Now we have got a woman who goes to her employer and putting it in writing says: "I actually think that you are paying me at a lesser rate." The employer says "OK. Well leave it on my desk and I'll get back to you." and 3 months later they might. But the bill goes on however. The employer "may … extend the time limit for making [the] decision … if the employer has genuine reasons based on reasonable grounds" for doing so. What would be a reasonable ground? A holiday in Fiji—"I wasn't there so I couldn't make the decision within 90 days as to whether I paid you less than I pay all your male counterparts."? I want the men sitting on the Government benches to tell me whether they would accept that and to explain to me that they would accept that inside any employment agreement that they got. But the Government believes that it is OK to put it inside this legislation.We know that this is not a Government that values women and values their work. How do we know that? We know that because this is the Government that used its financial veto to stop an extension to paid parental leave which considering only 1 percent of the male parents of this country take paid parental leave was obviously a vote against women.This is a Government that forced Kristine Bartlett—let us get clear. It is frustrating to the nth degree to have this Government do two things when talking about this particular bill and also the $2 billion that Kristine Bartlett and the E tū union forced this country to recognise and pay. One is that those members now pat themselves on the back as though they gave women the vote. For them to continue to remark how advanced we are because a hundred and something years ago women fought hard enough to actually get the vote is a—I do not think they realise how frustrating that is for women to listen to these men stand up and take credit for it as if they did it last week because they were overly generous.It is the same with the Kristine Bartlett case. There is no way that this Government would have addressed this issue if that case had not been taken to court. I am sorry but the reality is that the Government saw that if it allowed that case to go forward it was going to be far more expensive than what Kristine Bartlett and those women settled for in the generosity of spirit of those women.I want to give another example though. I want to give another example of a situation that this bill is going to exacerbate. A lot of those in the early childhood education sector will recognise this comment right? There are often comments around the feminisation of education—that there are not enough men in early childhood education and primary schools. We hear that all the time. So we ask why that is. Why is that the case? Why are there not enough men going into the profession of early childcare early childhood education or primary school teaching? The answer comes back: "Well you don't pay enough." The answer comes back that those sectors do not pay enough for men to bother with actually training and being part of that profession. What is really interesting about that is that therefore the State which predominantly pays the salaries of the kindergarten teachers and primary school teachers and sets a ratio has accepted that it is a female-dominated sector because men will not do the job for that money but apparently it is OK for women to the job for that money.Alastair Scott: Men will do the job for the money.TRACEY MARTIN: Men do not. There is no point shouting out Mr Scott. The men do not do it.Alastair Scott: Men do participate in that profession.TRACEY MARTIN: All right. Mr Scott who was sat over there with his white male colleagues when Jan Logie was pointing out time and time again pieces about this bill is going to get up and argue with me and read from his notes. He is going to do what every male member of that caucus has done so far: get up and tell the women in this room that we do not understand how the bill works. He is going to get up and mansplain to us that the women in this room do not understand how legislation is written. We do not understand court rulings! We do not understand how working parties go! That is what Mr Scott is going to do. He is going to get up and try to explain why the women are wrong. Mr Scott appears not to realise—[Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member. I actually want to hear what is being said so I just ask that the interjections be rare and reasonable.TRACEY MARTIN: Kia ora thank you. Mr Scott does not appear to realise with an election 7 weeks out that 52 percent of the voting public are women so I welcome Mr Scott getting up and explaining to 52 percent of the voting public why they are worth less and why this Government wants to put barriers in their way to make sure that it is much much harder for them to actually match their skills to males doing similar work. That is all women are asking for: tweak the Equal Pay Act of 1972; make this about a skills base not about a sector. Take away the four barriers that have been put up in front of women inside this legislation. Remove ridiculous clauses like clause 17 where a woman has to go to an employer and basically somehow convince them that they have merit.Alastair Scott: Read clause 29. Read clause 28.TRACEY MARTIN: No Mr Scott. You listen to the women of this country coming to see you. You explain—[Interruption]—again more mansplaining. More mansplaining from Mr Scott—more mansplaining from Mr Scott. I just read out to Mr Scott what clause 17 in his own bill says but Mr Scott apparently does not understand what clause 17 when it is read to him actually means.New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill. None of the Opposition parties will be supporting this bill. It will be interesting to see whether this bill gets through. Mr Seymour is here so it will be interesting to see Mr Seymour's contribution and where the Māori Party is on this and where Mr Dunne is on this because there are a lot of New Zealand voters watching. There are a lot of New Zealand voters watching. Again we are talking about women and their ability to get access to equal pay and fairness and justice and to have their skills matched against male counterparts and there are three male National Party MPs just laughing and interacting and joking together because it is of so little importance to them. They have made up their minds New Zealand—New Zealand women particularly. These males have made up their minds that they are right that you do not know anything and that the women of the House apparently are mistaken and are misled and they will now rise to their feet and explain why once again women do not get it and they are the masters of the universe."