Bernadette McEvoy, Chief Executive of Totara Farm represented NZDSN at The People’s Select Committee on Pay Equity, which is hearing submissions from individuals and groups unable to be heard on the Equal Pay Amendment Bill 2025 as the Bill was passed under urgency.
Bernadette expressed NZDSN’s deep concern about the Equal Pay Amendment Act 2025 and its repeal of the 2020 legislation – we believe this new Act has undermined hard-fought progress in gender equity, devalued critical care and support work, and put at risk the rights and wellbeing of both disabled people and the workforce who support them.
33 in-progress claims were effectively cancelled when the Equal Pay Amendment Act 2025 was passed under urgency, including claims from support workers, social workers, nurses, kaiārahi, teachers, and many other female-dominated professions.
In disability support, where the workforce is predominantly women and largely underpaid, these changes have been felt as a betrayal. The message sent to them is that their work is still not valued. It is a message that directly contradicts the Government’s stated commitments to fairness, equity, and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Impact on Disability Support Services:
The disability sector is already facing severe workforce shortages. Providers are struggling to recruit and retain support workers. Morale is low. Without fair wages, the care and support workforce cannot be sustained. And without that workforce, disabled people are left without the support they need to live ordinary, full lives.
Our call to the committee:
NZDSN supports the immediate repeal of the 2025 Amendment and a return to the previous framework. We ask the Committee to consider:
- Restoring the ability to lodge and progress claims without prohibitively high evidence thresholds at the start of the process.
- Reinstituting all cancelled claims and providing clear support for them to progress.
- Embedding Te Tiriti o Waitangi and equity principles throughout the legislative framework for pay equity.
We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for fairness. For the Government to honour the value of care and support work. For a system that recognises the real economic and social contribution made by thousands of underpaid women across Aotearoa every day.
NZDSN thanks Bernadette McEvoy for submitting on our behalf, and thank the people’s select committee for the opportunity to participate.