Ms Sonya Lennon:

Gallup yesterday launched a new environmental, social and governance, ESG, audit tool that included respect and integrity. It comes down to our duty of care, as a society, to foster respectful cultures in workplaces and in broader society. If we could, we would rename the whole thing because this is about equity, not equality. Domestic violence is a case in point in that regard as it is much more pertinent to women than it is to men, by definition. These are structures we have to put in place to support women to progress.

With WorkEqual, we did a piece of work with a public body that showed the gender gap rate of 6.1% hides other hidden policies that work against women progressing. Our deeper audit of the data showed that although it was a public organisation that had 50:50 gender parity from the top all the way down to the bottom of the pyramid, including the board, it concealed the fact that, because of a policy on management level requiring full-time application, all the recruitment for senior positions was external. There was an invisible blockage to career progression within the organisation. Looking at the gender pay gap reporting and the wider strategy to create new and more effective cultures, this is the sort of hidden data we need to uncover to see what are the landmines women are facing and what we can do about them.

I am sure the committee is aware of a case brought against New Zealand by an individual claiming equal pay for work of equal value. This is in response to the conversation about feminised sectors and how we can begin to unpick sectors that have become feminised and how we can raise the wages in those sectors, as was done successfully in early childcare, which is fantastic. It is about understanding the work women predominantly do, how it compares to similar work done by men, and how we as a nation can close that gap and understand the work has similar value.