New minister wants action on women's policy

The new Minister of Women's Affairs, Ruth Dyson, believes that her ministry needs to strengthen its link to the women of New Zealand.

"It has become a little too Wellington-focused and a little departmentally focused," she told the Herald this week.

"We need to make sure that the issues we're discussing in the capital that are of concern to women are indeed affirmed by women around the country."

In briefing papers, the ministry has called for the Government to undertake a "radical rethink" of family policies and income and employment guidelines.

Ms Dyson says she understands a frustration in the lack of focus on women's specific policies.

"I think we've been pretty consistent in ensuring that women's perspectives are recognised in our overall policies, but I don't think we're good enough when it comes to specific strategies."

Her priorities include a focus on pay equity. Submissions on the discussion document Next Steps to Pay Equity close on November 30.

The fact that New Zealand still has a large number of women-dominated occupations where comparable pay is lower than male-dominated occupations is "not acceptable in society".

"When you look at the starting rates for nurses and the starting rates for police ... it does rather reinforce the point somewhat," she says.

Also on the agenda is a review of the Parental Leave scheme, as resources permit.

"We need to keep that on the agenda so we can extend that to people who currently aren't entitled to get it."

This includes those who have had more than one employer in the previous year, and to the self-employed.

Another priority is looking at financial barriers to more participation in paid work.

"One of the biggest frustrations that particularly women on benefits have in moving towards independence is the social security abatement: they can only earn $80 a week, then they start losing money."

But Labour says it will need a lot of convincing to agree to income-splitting, a policy that United Future is pushing. The system allows a one-income couple with children to divide their tax in two.

Ms Dyson, whose first elected position in the Labour Party was onto the Labour Women's Council, said female participation at work had greatly improved.

"But what we didn't think about was: How do we share the rest of the work? We haven't got that balance of paid and unpaid work right."

Read the rest of this series:
nzherald.co.nz/nzwomen