Business leaders push for mandatory pay gap reporting, insist it’s a ‘non-political’ issue
Wednesday, 22 July 2026
An avowedly “non-political” group of business leaders are using the election as a springboard to push a long-standing demand for mandatory pay gap reporting ‒ and hope political parties across the spectrum will get behind the call.
Global Women, established in 2009 and now run under the leadership of chairperson Dame Theresa Gattung and chief executive Katie Bhreatnach, has published an open letter calling for bi-partisan support for mandatory gender pay gap reporting for businesses with 150 employees or more.
Pay gap reporting means declaring the average or median earnings of men and women across an organisation, and then measuring the percentage difference between the two. If a gap’s identified, companies can enact improved recruitment practices, expand flexible work and parental leave support entitlements, or offer more leadership development for women and other groups to “close the gap”.
Pay gap reporting for companies of a certain size is mandatory in countries such as Australia, the UK, France, and Sweden. But efforts to mandate it in New Zealand have failed over successive years, with some politicians and business groups arguing that it is too onerous for smaller businesses.
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New Zealand’s national gender pay gap is 5.2% - the lowest level recorded since official tracking began in 1998.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon this month said making pay gap reporting compulsory for businesses was worth “a conversation”, even though National has long said it prefers companies voluntarily coming to the decision to report.
Luxon himself introduced pay gap reporting at Air NZ when he was the national carrier’s chief executive, and was a member of Champions for Change - a group of top executives committed to driving measurable diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across corporate and public sectors.
For Global Women, Luxon’s apparent change of tone - and an upcoming election - has revived the idea.
Bhreatnach said a recent study of 300 businesses from Still Minding the Gap - a pressure group led by Dr Jo Cribb - debunked the two main arguments often advanced by business in opposing the concept.
“The vast majority of firms that were surveyed reported that they had no significant external costs, and that most of them could complete [pay gap reporting] in a matter of hours. And that's consistent with our experience,” she said.
“I think the second thing that was really useful to my mind from the research was it showed that when businesses do identify gaps, they are able to act on them, and many do, and that's the important point because reporting itself doesn't drive change; it gives you visibility and accountability that allows you to to make changes.”
Bhreatnach said pay gap reporting would ideally be a bipartisan idea, in the same way many believe KiwiSaver and infrastructure spending should be.
But it will require politicians to grab the idea and run with it, especially prior to the election.
New Zealand First strongly opposes structured Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) mandates, campaigning heavily against them as “woke left-wing social engineering”. The party introduced the Public Service (Repeal of Diversity and Inclusiveness Requirements) Amendment Bill in March 2025.
Bhreatnach believed gender pay gap reporting was a “business transparency and economic opportunity”, rather than political issue .
“We think every party, including the National Party, will get behind because of that.”
National had not got behind it so far though. After being elected in 2023 National had dropped a plan devised by the former Labour Government for mandatory pay gap reporting.
Some government resources are aimed at helping companies who do decide to report their pay gaps. For example, the Ministry for Women provides a gender pay gap toolkit - now extended to factor in ethnicity and disability.
The ACT Party has a policy to abolish the standalone Ministry for Women, as part of its push for smaller government.
ACT had also been behind a push that saw the National-led Government pass the Equal Pay Amendment Act 2025 earlier this year, cancelling existing pay equity claims that were working to extend equalise pay to female-dominated workforces.
In Bhreatnach’s view, pay equity was a very different issue from gender pay gap reporting.
Testimonies
ANZ has reported its gender pay gap for the past five years, seeing it drop from 22.4% in favour of men when it was first measured in 2021 to 18% in 2025.
“By measuring and reporting our gender pay gap we hold ourselves to account and ensure we are facing up to the challenge of addressing workplace inequality,” chief executive Antonia Watson told The Post.
She urged other large employers to do the same.
Traci Houpapa, chairperson of FOMA, Federation of Māori Authorities, said for Māori and Pacific women, the need to close the gap was more acute still.
The pay gap for Māori women sits 12%, while for Pacific women it 15.8% - and migrant and ethnic women experienced persistent pay inequities that further limited wealth and well-being opportunities, she said.