It would be no surprise to anyone who tuned in to the committee’s hearings that it found the passage of the Equal Pay Amendment Act was a flagrant and significant abuse of power.
The all-women committee was organised by the redoubtable former National member of Parliament Dame Marilyn Waring and comprised a group of 10 former MPs from National, Labour, NZ First, and the Greens.
It scrutinised the lead-up to the law and allowed people to be heard on the contentious changes, something which was denied when the law was pushed through Parliament under urgency.
The new law was retrospective, scuppering 33 pay equity claims, possibly affecting as many as 180,000 workers.
The rule changes meant the thousands of hours and millions of dollars spent on the rigorous process of preparing claims by funded sector employers, charitable organisations and unions was for nothing.
What was worse, those involved with claims were strung along thinking they would soon be making progress when in the background sweeping changes were afoot, something the committee agreed was orchestrated subterfuge.
While much had already been revealed by journalists about the government’s shabby secretive process, the committee’s report released this week highlights government ministers’ paucity of knowledge.
The committee said Cabinet papers showed throughout the pay equity exercise no minister was ever fully briefed on the measure’s human rights consequences.
"Every piece of information is bite-sized, simplistic and undeveloped — a slide show. No one is ever required to read anything meaningful or comprehensive."
Most readers relying on these papers for advice would fail a simple test on what pay equity meant, how it was different from annual wage bargaining, how the factor scoring for comparative workforces were carried out and what the international reputational damage might be in successive human rights reports to United Nations bodies, the committee said.
Accordingly, there was no evidence to support the claims made by the government on the shortcomings of the existing framework and how the new one would be better.
One of the most cynical aspects of the government’s attempt to sell its changes was the repeated sound-bite mockery of the comparator process. Government politicians, and it has to be said some ill-informed commentators, made no attempt to get to grips with the rationale and the rigour involved in comparing the tasks of occupations which, on the face of it, might seem vastly different.
The committee’s recommendations covered reversing the changes made and establishing and resourcing an independent pay equity unit to look at future claims.
What various political parties might offer on this issue during the election campaign is not clear.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins says the party is committed to reinstating pay equity but, as is his wont at this stage in the election cycle, is short on specifics.
National and Act New Zealand are apparently unable to understand their dismissive response to any criticism will be grating to those affected and angered by the law change.
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden went as far as saying reading the committee’s report "might be a bit of a waste of time for both me and those people who are involved in writing it" because there would be no change to the law.
Act leader David Seymour described the committee as self-appointing itself an authority on the issue and expecting everybody to jump to its tune, something he would not be doing.
Given the lack of evidence behind the government’s decision-making on this, his comments are laughable.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has also airily described the abuse of power claim from the committee as hyperbole.
All political parties would be wise to heed the view of committee member and former National MP Dr Jackie Blue that pay equity will be an election issue for affected women and their families and parties will need to front up on it.
