Logie Jan: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 05 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10735. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): Mr Speaker this is a split call with my colleague Steffan Browning. This year is the 120th anniversary of women gaining suffrage in this country. It is also the 80th anniversary of women entering Parliament and the 20th anniversary of women first taking leadership of a political party in this country. I think it is particularlyimportant this year and especially this week following the death of Dame Margaret Shields to consider how our political system is doing for women and how this Government in particular through this Budget is delivering for women. Of course we have made really significant progress since the 1970s but there is a sample of measures that tell me we have still got a long way to go. In this speech I would like to look at just one of those measures which is around the gender pay gap.We have an entrenched gender pay gap and according to some measures it is growing. Other measures tell us that it may be narrowing because male wages are declining. So what is this Budget offering us as women in terms of making some fundamental change in the inequality that exists for us in this country? According to the Minister of Finance one of this Government’s priorities with this Budget is to build a more productive and competitive economy. Well that should really bode well for women you would think especially in light of the Goldman Sachs research last year that showed that closing the gender pay gap could increase productivity by 10 percent. That is worth over $20 billion a year to this economy.Surely for that kind of outcome it would be worth actively and strongly pursuing a policy towards that end. Yet the Budget announcements relating to promoting a productive and competitive economy have been devoid of gender analysis. The Minister is focused on increasing tourism with $20 million a year; marketing education overseas with $10 million a year; and providing $25 million a year on new research and development. It is not that I do not believe in any of those initiatives but I really struggle to see how they have got the potential that is held within measures that would reduce the gender pay gap.So what is the Government doing to close the gap? My temptation honestly is to say “nothing”. It has said it is not going to put anything into extending paid parental leave and it has threatened to use its financial veto against the will of this House despite the fact that extending paid parental leave will strengthen women’s attachment to the workforce and the loss of that contributes to the gender pay gap.Further it has legislated against paying family carers their legal entitlements which would have significantly helped with the gender pay gap. Further it has not acted on the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner’s recommendations regarding pay for aged-care workers—another core factor in the gender pay gap. And when we look at non-Budgetary measures we see that it has refused to pick up my member’s bill which just provides a technical tool to enable women to argue their case.Those are four distinct things that this Government could be doing to radically increase productivity in this country—and it has done nothing. But if I am being truly fair I have to acknowledge that it has increased funding for the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and that that ministry is responsible for monitoring the gender pay gap. That is particularly important now that nobody is actually responsible for lowering that gap.So how will the ministry deliver for us women in New Zealand? Last year the Human Rights Commission critiqued the ministry saying that women are being short-changed by those setting targets on their behalf and it criticised the ministry’s pale ambition for women’s progress in New Zealand.Well I would expect as I am sure a Minister of Finance who cared about productivity would expect that ministry to have taken those criticisms on board and to have radically strengthened its targets. But no. Actually the ministry has watered them down. From a target of having 47 percent of appointments to State sector boards in 2015 now we find its target is to continue to increase from 41 percent in 2015 and a web page dedicated to gender pay gap just justifies the use of its measure. This year it has put out six media releases and has contracted one piece of research. That is this Government’s pitiful commitment to gender pay inequality.