Govt wants the salary facts
The new Government has told Statistics NZ it has to measure the country’s gender pay gap. Levelling out the pay in the public sector is something the Government is committed to.
The move follows a series of high-profile resignations by female co-hosts at media companies around the world. BBC China editor Carrie Gracie, E! TV’s Catt Sadler, and Australia’s Channel 9 breakfast show host Lisa Wilkinson all cited the pay gap.
On November 14 last year TVNZ’s Hilary Barry tweeted: ‘‘Dear Women of NZ, I’ve got some bad news for you. From today until the end of the year you’re working for free.’’
Barry is rumoured to be fronting Seven Sharp, which has always had a formula of one male and one female presenter. TVNZ would not comment on whether there was a pay discrepancy between the incoming hosts.
Neither would MediaWorks discuss the hosts’ pay packets on The Project, which resumes tomorrow.
The gender pay gap is all too real for Tabitha Milne of Wellington.
‘‘I’m in HR, so I know exactly what everyone’s getting paid,’’ she said.
‘‘I feel in my career I’ve been lucky enough to earn what I’m worth, but I don’t think that happens across the board and I don’t think that happens unless you’re prepared to argue and fight for it. If you were a bit of a more reserved woman, you’re probably not going to earn what your male counterparts are.’’
For Milne, the pay gap came down women being the primary caregivers.
‘‘I think it’s probably the oldschool attitude of ‘we pay our females less because we’re going to end up having an empty seat when they go to have babies’.’’
Mark Greer, owner of Hawke’s Bay business services company Bizdom, isn’t sure if there is a gender pay gap in the private sector.
‘‘I’m a commercial operator. I care about skills, not gender,’’ Greer said.
‘‘You have a responsibility to all of your stakeholders to pick the best person for their roles irrespective of gender. You need to get the right skills. I have an obligation to get the best candidate for the job with the right skills.’’
Greer questioned whether the Government would even be able to tackle the issue, because the solution was more complicated than a simple tweak to legislation.
‘‘I would be concerned if the Government started saying I had to have certain percentage of females and males.’’
He was not sure if the Government could do anything about reducing the gender wage gap.
But the new Statistics Minister, James Shaw, believed there was an onus on his department to gather the data, so the Government could fix it, he said in a written statement.
It was too early to know exactly how it was going to be measured.