‘Lying’ Labour or ‘gaslighting’ National? Pay equity debate heats up

Tuesday, 13 May 2025

ANALYSIS: It’s said that all is fair in love and war. The same could be true for politics.

Hence the quarrel that’s broken out between National and Labour this week, as passions run high over the Government’s hasty pay equity overhaul, and the two parties fight for the public’s sympathy.

After a week of wanting to say as little as possible about pay equity changes ‒ unexpectedly announced by ACT Party Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden last Tuesday morning and passed under urgency on Wednesday evening ‒ this week the National Party has gone on the offensive.

Lies, blame, gaslighting. The invective is flying. Another word describes what’s at play here: hypocrisy. And being politics, there’s plenty to go around.

“It's a terrible shame that Labour is resorting to lies and misinformation,” said Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on Tuesday morning. “We’re not cutting women’s pay.”

Senior MP Chris Bishop took on his occasional form as party attack dog.

“[Labour] are continuing their campaign of misinformation that started during the 2023 election campaign, and they are outright lying about our approach to pay equity. They are saying to New Zealanders that we are cutting women's pay. That is untrue. That is a lie,” Bishop said on Tuesday morning.

“This crosses the line into outright lies. We are not cutting women's pay, and it is wrong for the Labour Party to say that we are, and they actually know that. And I'm calling on them to be to be better.”

Bishop has a point: the Government is not cutting the pay of women today.

Under the new legislation, pay equity claims will still proceed and the pay of women working in traditionally underpaid sectors will rise in the coming years.

But, as an unrepentant Labour leader Chris Hipkins argues, potentially not by as much as it would have at the beginning of last week.

By tightening the regime and trimming billions from forecast claims, Hipkins said the Government is cutting the pay packets of women tomorrow.

“Taking money away that women were otherwise going to get is a cut,” he said.

“Any obfuscation, any blame, any gaslighting, should be seen for what it is.”

As often in political spin, Labour has but a toehold in truth.

Though it’s been reluctant to explain, the Government’s move does trim forecast claim payouts ‒ as in, wage rises ‒ that could have been expected, particularly by the workers who were part of the 33 claims the Government scrapped in the change.

The Government argues the pay equity regime was too loose, allowing for claims for pay rises not based on gender discrimination, but tied up in collective bargaining ‒ and therefore these forecast payouts unreasonably blew out.

Nonetheless, National is complaining about behaviour it has happily engaged in.

Examples abound. Remember Labour’s “jobs tax”?

In 2023, that was Luxon and Bishop’s slogan attached to Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s proposed social insurance scheme, an ACC-like levy system funded by employers and employees that would create a public insurance fund for workers who become unemployed.

The scheme was as much a “jobs tax” as the Government’s pay equity change is a “pay cut”. Neither are exactly that. Both are pieces of political rhetoric.

Bishop was unwilling to concede this on Tuesday. “It was a tax … it was a levy,” he said.

Yet when his Government increases levies, it does not call it a tax hike.

“You can have a debate about political rhetoric, and all parties use a bit of rhetoric, sure, but I think this crosses the line into outright lies,” Bishop said.

Nonetheless, Hipkins insists it is the Government that should not be believed.

“There will be no pay equity settlements between now and the election, because they've reset the clock on every single one of them.

“Years and years of work has been cancelled at the stroke of a pen.”

Is Labour lying or the Government gaslighting? The truth will be found in how the voter feels.