Sue Moroney

18 June 2009 - Minister of Women's Affairs, Pansy Wong, today backed away from commitments she made to the National Council of Women to work on fair pay for women, Labour's spokesperson for Women's Affairs, Sue Moroney says.

"Pansy Wong's performance in Parliament today shows how confused and shambolic National is on the issue of pay equity," Sue Moroney said.

"They have been scrambling to quell alarm over their scrapping of pay equity processes and resources since they came to Government, but that does not excuse giving false hope to community organisations on the progress they intend to make."

Pansy Wong had been quoted in the National Council of Women's June newsletter, as saying, "we have plenty of research and investigation on the need for pay parity and it is time we made changes to the law."

NCW advised Ms Moroney that they checked the statement for accuracy with the Minister before publishing it.

However, today Ms Wong claimed she couldn't remember making any such statement and refused to endorse it.

"National is stalling on pay equity by cutting the funding available for it and relitigating the research identifying the gender pay gap and its causes.

"The women of New Zealand are not fooled by this stalling tactic. Unfortunately the prospects of women achieve pay equity are getting further away under a National Government," said Sue Moroney.