Mike's Minute: The pay equity changes are in muddied water

Here is another example of the way the pay equity game is played by the media. 

If you choose not to call a minister the c-word, you run a headline like this - "Ministers set to take big pay rises right after wiping 33 pay equity claims". 

That’s the headline in Newsroom. It is dishonest in its inference. 

It's emotive and it misrepresents what is happening. In that is the Government's battle to try and convince the casual observer there is merit in what they have done in changing the law. 

First, a minister's pay and an equity claim are two completely different things. 

Second, a minister's pay is not equity based because a woman minister gets what a male minister gets. Always has, always will. 

Making it slightly more complicated, is a minister's pay is not merit based. They all get the same no matter how hard they work, how many portfolios they have and how good they are, or aren't. 

Third, although the 33 equity claims were wiped, it doesn’t mean they were stopped from going ahead under new rules. It doesn't mean they won't succeed under new rules. We have yet to see how that unfolds. 

Fourth, and part of the reason for the rule change, is a lot of the claims were not equity claims. They were bargaining, masquerading as equity from unions. 

Fifth, the fact a minister gets a pay rise is not of a minister's doing. It's an independent body, over which a minister has no control. 

Like an equity claim, the body looks at similar work to a minister's and makes a call based on those numbers. The irony is, who can you compare to a minister? You can't of course. A Prime Minister is also unique, so it’s a muddle. It's a system that is okay, only because we can't think of another one. 

But at no point is it about equity. 

The emotion of the debate overtook the rationale of the debate the moment Brooke van Velden made the announcement and it’s gone downhill ever since. 

Sixth, the headline uses the word "claim". In ministerial pay there is no claim, just an occasional decision, independently reached. 

So overall in terms of discourse around a detailed, if not complex, issue, apples and apples is what you might hope for, not immaturity and muddied waters. 

Which is what we've got. 

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