Jamie Ensor: NZ Herald political reporter addresses uproar around the Government's pay equity changes

The Government's pushed their new pay equity changes through - and it's prompted some noticeable backlash.

The Bill, halting pay equity claims and raising the threshold to lodge a claim based on gender discrimination, passed this week under urgency.

Hundreds of protestors turned up outside Ministerial offices around the country in opposition.

NZ Herald political reporter Jamie Ensor says these changes left Kiwis feeling 'blindsided' - and it felt like a 'perfect storm' making these changes so close to the Budget.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News talks'b.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
New Zealand Herald. Political reporter Jamie Enseil joins me now
to talk local politics. How are we.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Jamie, I'm very good. How are you?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Very good? Thank you. So this week we saw an
overhaul of the pay equity regime, with thirty three current
claims wiped and the narrowing of scope of this law
in the future. What are people more upset about the
changes to the law or the fact was completed abruptly
in thirty six hours under urgency or both.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
I think it is a bit of both. But really
I think it just blindsided a lot of people. You know,
actors push through a lot of reforms in this workplace
relations space before, but pay equity hasn't really been something
that people have been really vocal about. You know, it
wasn't a huge issue at the election, and so to
have a lot of this significantly changed, to have that

(00:56):
threshold for claims increased, I think it just really caught
people off guard and that's led to that really heated reaction.
You know, the government says it believes in pay equity,
and there were some workability issues with their regime, but
because the government used that urgency to ran it through
the House, there wasn't really an opportunity to have a
discussion about the changes they were actually making here. This

(01:19):
is a complex, nuanced issue. If there had been the
time to have the discussion, maybe the reaction wouldn't have
been so passionate, so heated, like we saw this week.
There's also the issue, of course, of the proximity to
the budget, because that just makes it look like the
changes are being made to help the government balance the book.
So you really have this perfect storm of issues here.

(01:41):
You know, the government says it needed to act quickly
to provide legal certainty, but it does look messy and
it creates that confusion around exactly what the government's intentions are.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
But it doesn't seem to affect national poles. But of
course the poll, the latest poll was before this was announced.
Where's everyone sitting at the moment?

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah, that's completely correat. So this is the new Taxpayers
Union Courier poll. It has both National and Labor in
the low thirties and both have gained from last month.
Nationals just ahead on thirty four point six percent and
then you have Labor on thirty three point two. There
hasn't been any other significant changes the center right, so
National Act in New Zealand first are still able to govern.

(02:26):
But you're right. It's important to note this poll was
taken right at the start of the month and that
was when the government was making a number of pre
budget announcements, so like their decision to help teachers with
their registration fees, cut the operational allowance and also allocate
a big chunk of cash to defense. But it's also
before the pay equity changes were nowd so this pole

(02:47):
doesn't really capture kiwi's reaction to that, and that could
end up being quite a major turning point. You know,
the opposition has been prosecuting the government hard over those
pay equity changes, and it does feel like the likes
of Labor and the Greens have a bit of momentum
behind them after this week. The question's really going to
be whether the government is planning any day surprises, you know,

(03:07):
any real retail policies that end up resonating with kiwis
to kind of counter those bad vibes that we saw
this week. We were yet to see any major budget
cost of living measures. You know, clearly money for things
like defense is important, but our boost for kiwis wallets
is ultimately what's going to turn the dial at the
ballot box.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Jamie and Saul, thanks for your time this morning. Appreciated.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
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