Lees-Galloway IainIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): As a member of Parliament who has only so far experienced Opposition—but I am expecting a change in the near future—the opportunities to experience real joy in this House have been few and far between. I can think of moments like when we passed the marriage equality legislation. I can think of the moment when we managed to amend the Government's bill on zero-hour contracts so that we could get it so it actually eliminated zero-hour contracts. And I think of the night when we passed the Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement Bill—a Government bill no less. It was a Government bill that we all celebrated. It was a night when we experienced real joy and celebration in this House because we knew we were doing the right thing. We were righting a wrong that had existed for far too long.Well tonight we are debating legislation that will ensure that that moment of joy never happens again and that is wrong. It speaks to the hypocrisy of that Government which celebrated and insisted that it was the Government's win when it then turns around and says it is going to pull the rug out from underneath every other woman and every other group of women who attempt to achieve a settlement like it. That is shameful.Carmel Sepuloni: It is shameful.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: It is shameful. Government members should be ashamed of themselves for bringing this legislation to the House.The member who gave the previous contribution Parmjeet Parmar made a brief acknowledgment of the gender pay gap. The gender pay gap exists in New Zealand and it is persistent in New Zealand. It really does not matter how we compare with other countries. Our task in New Zealand is to eliminate that gender pay gap. That gender pay gap is driven by two things: one is pay inequity and the other is pay inequality. Those two things are different. I think it is important that the House recognises that those two things are different and that that is acknowledged in this legislation.So unequal pay is when a man and a woman are doing the same job in the same business and they are paid different rates of pay for doing that same job. Pay inequity exists when professions that are female dominated and male dominated are scoped to the same level of skill the same level of education is required the same level of risk is involved and the nature of the jobs is the same but they are paid at different rates because one is male dominated and the other is female dominated. While both exist and both need to be eliminated the gender pay gap in New Zealand is predominantly driven by pay inequity: the difference between professions that are male dominated and female dominated and the different rates at which they are paid. That is why those of us who are in the Opposition are so distraught over the fact that the Government has set this hierarchy that requires that people who are attempting to make a pay equity claim have to look within their own profession within their own industry before they can start to make that comparison across industries. Because largely when you look within an industry when you look within a profession you will not find that inequity and you will not find the appropriate comparisons to make because of the nature of the inequity which is that female-dominated professions tend to be paid less than male-dominated professions.Before I came into this House I was lucky enough to be an employee of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO). Unfortunately I was not an employee of the Nurses Organisation when it had the big pay jolt for nurses; it happened just before I started working for it. But I learnt a lot about that pay jolt when I was working for the NZNO and what was at the core of that was the nurses' ability—that was not even a pay equity claim; that was just bargaining—to demonstrate that because their profession was a female-dominated profession they were paid less than a profession that scoped to the same skill rate the same risk rate and the same tasks and challenges that were faced in a male-dominated profession. In that case it was the police and other professions were included as well. But that was absolutely core to their ability to make that claim and to be able to win that claim and again to achieve something that everybody celebrated. I am sure National celebrated it back then when they were in Opposition as well—that finally nurses were being paid appropriately. That could not have happened had they not been able to make the case that a pay inequity existed between the nurses' profession and an equivalent male-dominated profession.That is why Opposition members of Parliament oppose this bill—because it is specifically designed to stop a settlement like the care and support workers' settlement happening again. It actually flies in the face of what the International Labour Organisation (ILO) tells us we should be doing to achieve pay equity. The ILO specifically says that comparisons should be able to be made across industries. I know that members opposite will say that this bill allows for it but why have the hierarchy in place in the first place? There is no place for it. It does not actually make any sense unless the purpose of the legislation is to diminish the opportunity to make a pay equity clam.The sad thing about it is that the joint working group actually seemed to be making really good progress and seemed to have reached agreement around these principles. It was only at the eleventh hour that the Government withdrew its support and I want to hear from just one member opposite why that happened. Why was it that the Government that seemed quite happy with reaching consensus around all the principles—why was it that this one in particular this question of the proximity of the comparators suddenly changed at the last minute? It is unfair it is unreasonable and it simply does not make any sense.What we should be debating tonight is not the repeal and replacement of the Equal Pay Act but in fact amendments to the Equal Pay Act to make equal pay and pay equity claims easier in the future. But the fact that the Government has gone so far to remove the piece of legislation under which the care and support workers' settlement was achieved and replace it with something that actually diminishes working women's ability to take a claim I think speaks volumes about what the Government is trying to achieve with this legislation.I want to support the commitment made by Jacinda Ardern in her contribution to this debate this evening. If a Labour-led Government is elected at the upcoming election which will be before this legislation has any opportunity to be considered by the select committee that will be the end of the line for this bill. We will introduce amendments to the Equal Pay Act that actually achieve what the Government claims to be achieving: making it possible for more working women to be able to make equal pay and pay equity claims; to be able to achieve that—I was going to say nirvana; it should not be nirvana it should just be the way it is. It should just be the way it is in the 21st century. It is to achieve normalcy. Let us achieve normalcy where it does not matter if a profession is male dominated or female dominated—that pay equity can be achieved and it does not matter whether you are a man or a woman doing a job equal pay can be achieved. That is our commitment. We are not going to muck around with this. We are not going to have silly hierarchies silly rules that set the bar too high to make it nearly impossible to establish a claim. We want to make it as easy as possible because quite simply on this side of the House we do believe in pay equity we do believe in equal pay and we believe in working alongside those who have driven this issue for years and years and years to put in place the mechanisms that will achieve it. And if the parties opposite—the National Party in particular—truly believe in equal pay and pay equity then they will join us in doing that.