Nicola Willis attacks women workers

National has once again thrown women workers under the bus for the sake of the Budget. Are we seeing a current-day rehash of Ruth Richardson’s infamous 1991 Mother of all Budgets?  

“Working nine to five, what a way to make a livin’,” indeed. Two weeks ago ACT Party Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden announced and then pushed through a Bill under urgency that strikingly changed how systemic undervaluation of women-dominated professions are calculated and then addressed. Legislation amending the Equal Pay Act 1972 will make it more difficult for women to demonstrate, and subsequently remedy, historical and ongoing inequity in pay.   

Despite insistence by Minister van Velden that her amendment will provide a better framework for assessing sex-based undervaluation of remuneration in female-dominated occupations, many – including her own party leader, David Seymour – have claimed that she’s “saved the budget” and found billions in savings. Those savings come at the cost of predominantly essential workers, people like nurses, teachers and care workers – who during Covid – we recognised deserved R-E-S-P-E-C-T!  

The evidence for pay equity is clear: fiscally, academically and most importantly socially. In 2012, Te Kāhui Tika Tangata – the Human Rights Commission released their Caring Counts report, which released data on pay inequity in the aged care workforce, eventually leading to care worker Kristine Bartlett’s historic five-year court battle. 

Her fight led to a historic $2 billion settlement, and the eventual 2020 amendment to the Equal Pay Act, opening the door for hundreds of thousands of women to get paid fairly for their work.  

The current 33 pay equity claims retrospectively put in the bin by Minister van Velden represented over 200,000 workers across the country. It must be noted that in 2022 the Human Rights Commission released another report outlining a dual gender and ethnic pay gap which revealed Pacific women are hit the hardest, being paid, on average, $0.75 for every dollar a Pākehā man earns.  

However, if this is a Budget decision, Minister of Finance Nicola Willis should be held accountable for taking billions out of the pockets of our lowest-paid and societally vital workers. Her actions reflect her own brand of Superwoman feminism, but some have reflected on how this Government’s actions resemble Ruth Richardson’s 1991 ‘Mother of all Budgets’, often referred to as ‘Ruthanasia’. Sunday Star-Times columnist Andrea Vance notes that the two women ministers, “wield the same ideological scalpel, and again, it’s women who bleed”.   

In 1990, there was a similar debate about the long-repealed Employment Equity Act. Introduced by Labour, this Act was intended to identify areas of pay inequality for women, Māori, Pacific and disabled workers. It aimed to promote equal employment opportunities and eliminate and redress current and historical discrimination against women. 

In 2025, the current disparity costs many women as much as $150 a week, or $7,800 a year. If this Act was to still be in force, 35 years later we would be much better progressed to address inequity in pay and conditions in our society. In this economy, that’s one way of being better able to be an independent woman.  

Minister Willis said during the third reading of the Fair Pay Amendment. That she was “proud” to support the Bill and that it was an “important moment” when she took money from our lowest paid.  

During the first reading of the Employment Equity Bill, Ruth Richardson took a different approach. She took aim at then-Minister of Labour Helen Clark, saying that she was “condemning [New Zealand women] to a ghetto of women’s work.” The words might have been different, but the intentions were the same; to strip women workers of power and pay.   

Jim Bolger’s National government then legislated the Employment Contracts Act 1991, which further stripped workers of trade union and collective bargaining rights. In its first 100 days, under urgency, Christopher Luxon’s government repealed the Fair Pay Agreements Act 2022 which would have reinstated some of those rights. On many such occasions, men in government have put the cost of fiscal responsibility unfairly on the shoulders of women alone.  

Labour also shares part of the blame. The Employment Equity Act came into force on 1 October 1990. That same month National was elected and then repealed it. It’s vital that politicians of all stripes remember not to pass the buck, own up to past mistakes and work to better the futures of our collective daughters and granddaughters. Most importantly, women must say: “I will survive.” 

As ‘expert negotiator and CEO extraordinaire,’ Christopher Luxon also shares much blame himself. Since the introduction of MMP, neither Labour nor National have ever dared give the job of Minister of Workplace Relations to a coalition partner. Everyone has ideologically head-strong views on the way work should be regulated. The Prime Minister has broken with such custom and made everyone – including himself, and particularly the female ministers in his party – look the fool. As for Nicola Willis, she may be thinking, ‘this girl is on fire,’ but she’s the one setting fire to her own home.  

Every woman in government should hang their heads in shame for the women they have let down.