Labour Party: 'The budget that left women out'

Women are the big losers in this year's Budget, the Labour Party and a union says.

Budget 2025 documents reveal the tightening of the pay equity regime will net the government $2.7 billion every year.

The Pay Equity Amendment Bill was passed on May 7 after being rushed through under urgency.

The legislation means 33 equity claims involving hundreds of thousands of workers including nurses and teachers being negotiated will now have to restart the process under new criteria. 

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said in Parliament this afternoon this year's Budget tells women they are "worth less than tax breaks for landlords, tobacco companies, Google and Facebook".

"This is the budget that will be remembered as the budget that left women out, " he told MPs.

"This is the budget that said to working Kiwi women, they are worth less - in fact, nearly $3 billion a year less. The budget that says women are worth less than tax breaks for landlords... than tax breaks for tobacco companies... than tax breaks for multinational corporations like Google and Facebook."

The PSA Worker's Union was also scathing, calling it a "wage theft budget" that would take more than $12 billion from women.

National secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said it exposed the government's naked theft of wages from thousands of underpaid women to pay for tax cuts for landlords.

It was a budget paid for by taking $60 million a week from people like care and support workers among others, she said.

Fitzsimons called on the government to sit down with workers, unions, employers and pay equity experts in a proper select committee process and come up with a new framework.

- RNZ and APL