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Political parties are being urged to promise to repeal the controversial pay equity law changes before the general election after the release of a critical report by New Zealand’s first “people’s select committee”.

The just-released report’s fierce criticism is based on submissions from 10 female former MPS from a range of political parties including National’s Marilyn Waring and Labour’s Nanaia Mahuta.

The report lambasts the “lack of transparency” in the bill’s development, which was passed under urgency without the normal scrutiny of a Parliamentary select committee. In her submission to the people’s select committee, Dame Judy McGregor said this process “created a new low in New Zealand’s constitutional history with its extraordinary disregard for the time-honoured checks and balances for effective legislation”.

The report concluded there was no meaningful engagement with Māori whose “existing disadvantage” would be further compounded by the changes, or the Ministry of Women “despite the bill proposing a fundamental change to a policy that was squarely within their remit”.

In a statement, New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Secretary Melissa Ansell-Bridges said political parties should make the recommendations of the report a “bottom line” heading into the general election.

“Women are demanding cast-iron commitments,” she said.

The changes essentially cancel 33 active pay equity claims while raising the threshold to make a claim and change the way claims are assessed.

Minister Brooke van Velden, who spearheaded the changes, said the former MPs were “free to hold their own opinions and publish their own material” and insisted “equal pay is here to stay, and a pay equity system remains.

“The new law is already being used to process claims. It makes the regime simpler and more robust, focused squarely on sex-based discrimination, and sets out a transparent process through which employers and employees can negotiate questions of equal value.”

Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden in her Beehive office at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The committee said it was told by submitters “there was no evidence” the changes would lead to a more rigorous process which saved money and time or that these changes would make the pay equity process more workable and sustainable.

“The evidence we received confirmed the effect was anything but this. Nor could we find any information that supported these claims in officials’ advice to the Government.”

The report said the retrospective application of the law was “particularly egregious” when applied to human rights and a violation of the “rule of law”.

Workers, employers, economists, and members of civil society had described to the committee the “dismay, loss of trust and sense of waste and betrayal that accompanied their realisation that embedded injustice was going to remain a reality of life for large sections of the most vulnerable in our society”.

Dame Judy McGregor. Photo / Natalie Slade

Melissa Ansell-Bridges said: “This report is clear – the Government’s changes to the Equal Pay Act must be repealed and the cancelled claims should be reinstated without a requirement to restart a pay equity process.”

The New Zealand Human Rights Commission said the pay equity changes “unquestionably undermined human rights” and made it harder to correct pay inequities for “potentially hundreds of thousands of people working in women-dominated professions”.

Professor Gail Pacheco, Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner for the Human Rights Commission, said the legislative process, which saw the amendments rushed through under urgency, denied those impacted by the changes their right to democratic participation.

“It must not go unnoticed that as a country we are committed and obligated to not only advance pay equity but also to protect the hard-fought gains we have made.”

Kahurangi Carter, the Green Party’s spokesperson for women, said the Government underestimated how badly this would go down with the public.

Since the changes were announced in May last year, thousands of people have protested and rallied nationwide, including outside of Parliament.

“This wasn’t a technical tweak. This was wage theft on a national scale, rushed through without any opportunity for the women affected to have their say,” Carter said.

“Pay inequity disproportionately impacts Māori, Pacific and disabled women – the very communities already facing the greatest barriers to fair pay. This Government is deepening those disparities, not closing them.”

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.