The Coalition Government must confirm its commitment to fully-funding pay equity for the funded health sector, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki O Aotearoa (NZNO) says.

After urgently changing the Equal Pay Act without public consultation and scrapping 33 pay equity claims overnight, the Coalition Government promised it had kept a “fair pay equity scheme focused on genuine sex-based discrimination”.

However, despite being asked in Parliament and by media, Cabinet ministers have refused to say whether a 2024 “pay equity reset” means the funded sector will not have pay equity claims funded by the Government. NZNO had 10 pay equity claims dumped including for the primary health care, hospice, Plunket and care and support funded sectors.

NZNO Primary Health Care Nurses College chair Tracey Morgan says the scrapping of the primary and community health care claim was devastating to nurses in the sector.

“Primary and community health care nurses, like their hospice and Plunket counterparts, accepted lower wage increases in their collective agreements on the understanding they were about to receive pay equity payments.

“They then had the rug pulled out from under them with the Government ending their claims without warning or legitimate reason.

“Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke Van Velden has refused to say the Government will fund pay equity claims for the funded sector, simply pointing to an opaque 2024 Cabinet paper from Finance Minister Nicola Willis which says the funded sector can go cap in hand to the Government for each settlement.

“If the Coalition Government remains truly committed to a fair pay equity system, it should promise low-paid and hard-working health care workers in the funded sector such as primary and community care that they will fund their pay equity settlements,” Tracey Morgan says.