Lee MelissaMELISSA LEE (National): Mr Deputy Speaker before I make my contribution on this bill I would like to congratulate you and welcome you back to this wonderful House—lovely to see you smile. To the member Tracey Martin across the benches you owe me $2 mate. Just in case you actually need proof of whether the member in front of me actually spoke ahead of me just to win the bet I can show you the speaking list to confirm that Paul Foster-Bell's name was in fact ordered in that way. Just for some members who were actually wondering what mansplaining is that speech from Iain Lees-Galloway was a perfect example of mansplaining. It is a man standing up and yelling and screaming and trying to tell women what to think. I just want to say that you do not have to yell and scream in this House. We do actually hear you and you make some points well and I think we are all very passionate in this House. I just want to congratulate Jan Logie on having her member's bill drawn from the ballot. All of us put bills in the member's ballot and you know whenever there is a ballot we do wonder whether our bill is going to be drawn from the ballot or not. Some members are more lucky than others and mine has been in there since God knows how long. The issue of gender and pay is in fact an important one as previous speakers have said and how we actually view it and how we hope to address that issue—obviously we have different ways. I believe it is actually an important issue that this House has to have a discussion on. I think it was Barbara Kuriger who said that bias and perception about women in the workplace is driving our gender pay gap and it is important that we achieve good and fair outcomes for all employees. I would like to note that in the House however the Government is in fact doing something to address the issue and I will come to that a little bit later on. The member's bill proposes changes to mandate employers to provide gender pay information to employees to help identify potential discrimination. On first look this sounds like a good idea and reasonable but you know as other members have actually said there is a privacy risk as wage data does not always give the full story. Wages can vary based on hours time and other important factors like experience when deriving one's pay. Actually we are now at the heart of Privacy Week. For those of you who did not know there is in fact a Privacy Week—this week is actually the week of privacy. The bill concerns the privacy of employees and the company that they work for and that has to be noted. Privacy can be a particular problem in smaller businesses where there is a small number of employees and sometimes you know the pay differences could be identifiable. It may be the right thing to actually raise the issue but the effect that it might have on other employees—it is not necessarily their fault that they are actually earning more than their counterparts and the fact that they might actually get hatred from a fellow workmate could be something that might produce disharmony in a workplace and that can lead to an unproductive workplace. When you have few staff and when men and women are in similar roles it is clear that the privacy of the minority would be impacted on and the identity of the higher earners would be identified and that could be a problem. I know that Barbara Kuriger talked about the administration costs so I will not actually go into that. But I read a while ago—I mean most of us actually hate the idea that women are getting paid less for the same work. I think we all agree on that factor. The fact is that the Government has been promoting and trying to achieve good results on State sector boards where I know people have mentioned the figure of 45 percent. That was achieved in December of 2016. It is really unfortunate that the NZX-listed companies do not have such good results—their boards are only 17 percent women—but the Government is working towards its own pay equity legislation. The exposure draft of the pay equity bill has actually been released for public consultation to ensure that the wording in the legislation is clear and workable for employers and employees. The consultation is closing tomorrow in fact and the legislation is planned to be introduced soon. So I am looking forward to that piece of legislation which has actually been consulted widely on. I believe that it will a strong step towards closing the gender pay gap and ensuring female-dominated industries get fair and reflective pay supporting hard-working New Zealanders. Hence I cannot support Jan's bill.