The Government is unlikely to fund pay equity for hospice and Plunket nurses, care and support workers and other workforces made up of mostly women.

On Thursday Brooke Van Velden told Parliament that she understood that "the Government, under Minister Nicola Willis' pay equity reset, suggested that the funded sector would not be funded by the Government for pay equity."

The pay equity reset last year also disbanded the pay equity taskforce, but until now it had not been clear the Government was looking to wash its hands of funding pay equity claims for these sectors altogether.

On Wednesday the Prime Minister Christopher Luxon either didn’t know his government had made that decision or was deliberately hiding the truth about the funded sector.

“What this could mean is that women in this sector, whose claims have now been extinguished by the law passed two weeks ago, will no longer have a pathway to pay equity,” Labour workplace relations and safety spokesperson Jan Tinetti said.

“These are the care and support workers who look after our parents and grandparents when they can no longer look after themselves. Who provide dementia and disabled care. Plunket nurses who support new mums, and hospice nurses who provide end of life care.

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“Brooke Van Velden appears to have confirmed on Nicola Willis’ behalf that there isn’t a pathway to raising women’s wages in these sectors, because the Government isn’t intending to contribute to raising their pay.

“If Nicola Willis never intended to fund pay equity in the funded sector, then she has been stringing women along for months before the law change two weeks ago. Without government support, pay equity in these sectors is unlikely to happen.

“This is beyond bad faith. It is betrayal,” Jan Tinetti said.

Note:

The funded sector are those paid by Government to provide a service, rather than directly employed by the public sector.

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