Ms Delahunty, who is the Green Party spokeswoman on women's affairs and disabilities issues, addressed a meeting of about 30 women concerned with pay-equity issues in Dunedin on Thursday night, and yesterday also spoke to people in the disabilities support sector.
Former EMA chief executive Alasdair Thompson was dismissed in early July for implying, during a radio discussion of the gender pay gap, that some women were less productive than men because they had regular "sick problems", and took more time off.
That discussion had been sparked by an Equal Pay Bill, promoted by Ms Delahunty by way of a member's Bill, to deal with the wage gap.
Ms Delahunty said in an interview yesterday that her proposed Bill aimed to break down unhelpful secrecy over employment contracts, and pay inequality.
The proposed law would require employers to collect generalised data about pay rates paid to male and female workers, and to provide that information on request by employees.
The outraged response from many people over Mr Thompson's remarks showed they had "touched a deep nerve about the value of women's work", she said.
It was unclear what the fate of her proposed Bill would be, but the extent of public outrage over the earlier remarks showed that pay equality remained a live issue.
Women clearly wanted MPs to champion their cause, and she would be continuing her fight to overcome the gender pay gap, which still amounted to about 14%, despite equal pay legislation having been first enacted in this country in 1972.
The Green Party was also strongly supporting a CTU petition to highlight public concern over the pay equity issue.
It was also a scandal that workers in predominantly female occupations, such as cleaning, teacher aide work and caregiving, were systematically lowly paid, despite the importance of their work to society.
And it was clearly unacceptable that two of every five New Zealand children who were living below the poverty line were actually from families that were in work, she said.
