Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Can we find the money for the pay equity scheme?

So, the People’s Select Committee of former MPs has reported back today and, completely unsurprisingly, has slammed the Government for scrapping the pay equity law last year.

Which is fair enough in some ways, it was a shoddy process. The MPs say it offends the rule of law and they’re probably right.

It was done in a hurry to save last year’s Budget, rushed through under urgency and changed the rules retrospectively. It’s all really cynical stuff from a Government and too much of that sort of behaviour undermines confidence in the way the system works.

But even though they make some fair points and mount some fair criticism of the way Nicola Willis and Brooke van Velden ran this thing out, I can’t get past the next question I have, which is: so what?

What do these former MPs think will happen as a result of this report? The pay equity scheme is not going to be brought back in the form it previously existed. It’s far too expensive.

The cost to the Government was estimated at $13 billion over four years. The cost to the entire economy would have been much, much higher.

The former MPs want political parties to make it a bottom line to reintroduce the scheme after the election. No party can credibly commit to that.

Where would they find $13 billion, other than by making the country’s already worrying structural deficit even worse and adding to our already far-too-large debt?

Chippy will make noises about bringing it back, but press him a little harder - ask him where he’s going to find the money - and you don’t get any sufficient answers.

Ultimately, that’s where the argument ends - where do you find the money?

Yes, it was bad lawmaking. Yes, people were hurt by it. Yes, it’s fair to criticise. But where do you get the money?

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