Louise Upston: Acting Minister for Women on the Government's new scheme to reduce the gender pay gap

The Government aims to reduce the nation's gender pay gap through the development of a voluntary calculation tool.

Current figures show the gap currently sits at 8.6 per cent - and has remained persistent at around 9 percent from 2018.

Acting Minister for Women Louise Upston says businesses need a consistent and simple tool to measure their pay gaps, and then develop solutions.

"We think this is a really important first step - so businesses can take those steps and we can see the gender pay gap reduce."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now the governments announced it's planning to bring involuntary reporting
of companies gender pay gaps. The gender pay gap is
currently eight point six percent in the Ministry for Women
will work on a way to help businesses calculate their
pay gaps. Louise Upston is the acting Minister for Women
and with us now, Hey Louise, hey, you doing Heather
very well? Thank you. So what order is this going
to be. Is it going to be public reporting of

(00:21):
the pay gap or is it just going to be
reporting it privately to the Ministry for Women.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
No, So this is basically developing a tool that means
business are able to calculate their own gender pay gap.
What we know is that the first understand what the
gap is and then each business can develop a plan
for how to reduce it. So the first part is
making sure that there's a consistent for that businesses can use.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Right and so when that tool is developed, will it
be publicly reported or just reported privately to the government agency.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, it won't be reported to the government agency. It's
for business is to use themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Reported themselves if they want to.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
That's right. So we do know for champions to change organizations,
they are already participating in a process where they are
looking at their gender pay gap. Some businesses are reporting
it publicly. What we want the focus to be on
is businesses have a tool that is consistent and simple

(01:25):
to use where they can measure their own gender pay
gap and then they can develop a plan to reduce
the gap in their workforce. We think this is a
really important first step. So businesses can take those steps
and we can see the gender pay gap reduce.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Do these tools already exist?

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Some of them do what we do know we've learned
from the example in Australia. It can be incredibly complicated,
and what we do want to do is make sure
it's as easy as possible for businesses to measure their
gender pay gap. Which is wise.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
I mean, we're not the first people in the world
to be doing this, right, this is done all over
the world. It's already being done by some businesses in
New Zealand. So why don't we just use the tool
they've already got.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Well, there's some level of concern around the tool that's
being used, so we want to make sure we've got
a simple one that is effective. What we don't want
to do is had a very expensive regulatory system like
they have in Australia. The costs about ten billion dollars.
They have a separate regulator and every business over a
particular size has to report. We want a practical tool

(02:35):
that we're developing with business that other businesses all then
pick up a.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
New So it's not as simple as saying you've got
one hundred and twenty women and on average they get
paid X, and you've got one hundred and twenty men
in the in the business on average they get paid
a bigger X. It doesn't work like that. You don't
just add them together and divide it by the number.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
No, because if you think about part time employment and
you think about bonuses, you think about are we calculating mean,
average or medium? So it is about but what we
do want to make sure we're doing is being able
to calculate it consistently and have a tool that businesses

(03:17):
can be confident about. And also if you are if
you are a potential employee looking at going to work
for an organization and they publish their gender pay gap,
you want to have confidence that that information is accurate.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Louise, I'll tell you what my problem with the gender
pay gap is you could tell me how we fix
the situation. Okay, let's look at the business that I
work for. The two highest earners in this business I
would take a punt would be the CEO bloke and
Mike Hosking bloke. Now, that would skew things like that's
going to skew things massively in the male favor. But
it's not. That doesn't that's not unfair because Mike Hosking

(03:53):
is in that position regardless of whether he's a bloke
because he is just the best at that job, and
the CEO just happens to be a bloke, could be
a lay, but this time it's a bloke. So how
do you get around that where you've got some very
prominent high owners who will skew things and make it
look like there's a gender pay gap when perhaps if
you come down a level, there's no gender pay gap.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah. So what some sectors are doing that are much
further down this track than others is they are able
to look at their data and assess what's the gender
pay gap in the senior leadership team, what's the gender
pay gap at the operational level of the business, what
is the gender pay gap in Auckland. So they are

(04:34):
able to analyze their data in a range of different
ways that can lead to meaningful actions that they then
take to reduce the gender pay gap. So they're taking
that consideration some of those things absolutely and it's got
to be meaningful and it's got to lead to options
a business can take to lead to change that reduces

(04:56):
the gender pay gap, because that's the end goal here.
We want to reduce the gender.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Pay Louise, thank you so much. Appreciate it that this
is Louise upstin acting Minister for Women. I'll tell you what,
it's a good thing that they're not going through with
it making it compulsory, right, because that is just red
tape all over the shop, when when David Seen was
doing such an admirable job at the moment of cutting
the old redtape. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
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(05:21):
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