Te Pāti Māori stands in staunch and emotional opposition to the Government’s so-called Equal Pay Amendment Bill, calling it a calculated attack on working women and a cruel betrayal of the generations who have fought for pay equity in Aotearoa.

“This bill doesn’t just undermine equal pay — it completely erases it,” said MP for Tāmaki-Makaurau and Workers Rights Spokesperson, Takutai Tarsh Kemp.

“It will make it impossible for people in female-dominated professions to be paid fairly. It locks in gender discrimination, and it will hit wāhine Māori, Pacific, Asian, and migrant women the hardest. This is not reform — this is repression.”

The Government’s Equal Pay Amendment Bill cancels 33 live claims under urgency, bans back pay, delays fair pay for years, and blocks new claims for a decade — all while giving bosses unchecked power to shut down claims without reason.

“This Government can afford to give $3 billion in tax breaks to landlords, and $13 billion to the military, but this comes at the expense of paying our wāhine fairly,” said Kemp.

“I have witnessed this first hand as a Māori woman who put my heart, sweat, blood, and tears into my mahi while a male equivalent was paid more than ten thousand dollars more. I was undervalued, demoralised and taken advantage of.”

“Māori women are paid 80 cents to every dollar a Pākehā man earns. These aren’t just numbers. This is the intergenerational impact of discrimination that the ACT Party and this government are hellbent on entrenching.

“Te Pāti Māori will not be supporting this bill. We stand by wāhine. We stand by justice. And we will fight this every step of the way,” said Kemp.

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