Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Minister for Women): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare.I'm very pleased to be speaking in support of the Equal Pay Amendment Bill tonight. This bill represents one of the biggest steps for gender equality in employment in over 40 years. And although we've had the Equal Pay Act since 1972 we still have a gender pay gap of 9.3 percent. That gap is much worse for Māori and Pasifika women women with disabilities other women of colour or immigrants to New Zealand. Actually the gap is far worse than for Pākehā women and we need to start focussing on that ethnic pay gap far more I think than the gender pay gap.I'd really like to acknowledge first up the work of the Education and Workforce Committee for the many hours they spent hearing and reading submissions and developing their report. Thank you too to all those over 600 people and organisations who made submissions on the bill. The insights and expertise have been invaluable for improving the bill. It's fantastic to hear that the Opposition will be supporting this legislation. I think that is a positive step. And I know that while many of the speakers tonight from the National Party have spoken in favour of the bill and have complained that previous legislation wasn't accelerated faster the irony is that legislation was actually literally putting up barriers to women taking successful pay equity claims. That's precisely why we've had to do so much work during this term of Government to fix it and develop legislation that would actually make it easier for women and all people in female-dominated workforces to achieve fair pay for their work.The issue with pay equity is of course right across a profession or a type of work that has been female dominated that's why there is that pay gap. So it's not just because they're women but because the profession itself has been female dominated. And in 2014 the Court of Appeal found that the Equal Pay Act can be interpreted to require equal pay for work of equal value leading to that landmark TerraNova settlement. And we have to shout out to Kristine Bartlett and the E Tū union who were successful in their campaign to raise the pay of care and support workers.I will get to the bill but I do just want to address some of the points the previous speaker made because she did claim that no progress had been made on this issue while we've been working on the legislation. Unfortunately she's absolutely incorrect because as soon as our Government came in we extended the claim to mental health workers—the care and support workers' claim was extended to mental health workers—as it should have been from the beginning which the previous National Government did not do. And while this process has been under way the Government has been busy progressing many pay equity claims in the State sector including social workers at Oranga Tamariki and most recently the $348 million teacher-aide pay equity claim. Would this have happened under a National Government? No. So lots of progress is being made and we are achieving much fairer pay for women. And you can already see that in the largest reduction since 2002 in the gender pay gap in the Public Service because this Government made it a priority started working on it and definitely the pay equity claims and settlements are starting to contribute to that.Throughout the process of developing the bill and preparing it for second reading my party has been ensuring that all women who may have a pay equity problem can access the process. This legislation aligns with the existing bargaining systems with which many employers and employees will already be familiar. As noted by the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety a Supplementary Order Paper is planned to more closely align this bill with the Employment Relations Act which is something that was brought to us by our social partners Business New Zealand the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and their affiliates post the select committee process which is why it has taken some time to get the legislation right. But it's more important that it is right. It has not been a barrier to us making enormous progress for women and on pay equity claims during the time that this process has occurred. So it's just a little bit of a story that the Opposition is telling themselves. I'm sure they believe it because they're not really paying attention to reality these days; it's too depressing for them.But we still have a lot of work ahead of us. Even after this legislation is passed—and I'm looking forward to that time—we will still have a lot of work ahead of us to ensure that all women and girls in all of their diversity are financially secure and can thrive are safe from violence are recognised for the work that they do and are able to be financially independent. Removing bias and discrimination ending domestic and sexual violence and paying women what they are worth are all different sides of the same issue.So this bill is a milestone and at the second reading I just have to say that there will be a Supplementary Order Paper. We have had during this process the Ministry for Women working very closely with the officials at the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE). We've worked in absolute partnership with the Minister of employment relations and there is something novel that this Government has done that the previous Government did not do and that is that we had a genuine partnership approach with the Ministry for Women and the Minister for Women at the table as we ensured that this legislation was going to do everything possible to end this structural bias and discrimination against women and what they are paid. So I look forward to the next stage of this bill. I commend the bill to the House.