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So I'm Jim Tray. Um, I'm a transgender activist. I've been involved in the Wellington community for about three years. Um, currently on the board of Rainbow Wellington. And, um, I'll get into later. While I was inspired to give this talk. Um, I'll just leave it there. Should we go around this way? Yeah. And I'm Jim Water. So I'm also a I'm Linda Wallace, and I'm [00:00:30] an from the I work with. Thank you. Um, my name's Claire Miller. I just have an interest in human rights and inclusiveness, and I have a a transgender nephew who I'm very proud of. And, um, Yeah, my name is Amy Eastwood. I'm, um, a student journalist with Polytechnic. [00:01:00] Um, I'm also transgender as a footnote. Uh, my name is Maggie. Um, I use the their pronouns. Um, I'm a volunteer with youth line and set out and outer spaces, um, and have volunteered with them for about six years. OK, cool. OK, so I'm gonna move things along because, um, we've got just under an hour just to see if he wants to go to the other thing that's on tonight [00:01:30] can make it. Um, I've basically divided this into um, five or six parts. And I thought since it's a small group rather than me like talk for half an hour and then having a discussion at the end, I thought it would be quite OK, like I'll go through each bit and then stop. And then anybody who wants to make a comment or ask a question or give feedback or start a discussion we can do that. Um, we'll just keep an eye on the time as we go. So this is about [00:02:00] 10 minutes for each little part. So the the origin of this presentation, um, I'm obviously coming from a transgender perspective, but the idea is is that this is really just a case study which says something about our entire human rights system, which basically affects everybody. So I'm also going to talk about a couple of other perspectives on human rights in New Zealand. But I'm gonna start off with the one that, um, that inspired this talk. So, um, 10 years [00:02:30] ago, the Human Rights Commission had an inquiry, um, into discrimination experienced by transgender and intersex people in New Zealand. And, um, this is their quite well known report to be who I am, which they published exactly 10 years ago last month. Um, and this is really, I think, a key quote from the report. It's basically said, um, the lives of trans people in New Zealand are marked by discrimination, severe [00:03:00] barriers to equitable health services and limited legal and public recognition of who they are. So it's quite quite a quite a, um, a damning finding, um, about where New Zealand was at 10 years ago. Um, and I think the reason to start off why it was particularly damning back in 2008 is that basically parliament had outlawed discrimination against transgender people as well as other minorities in 1993. [00:03:30] So this is 17 years later, and basically, we've got an official government, um, all independent, um, commission report saying, Well, actually, transgender people still experiencing discrimination on an everyday basis, and it's not just, um you know, other New Zealanders who are discriminating against them. They had a whole lot of recommendations, um, for a whole raft of government agencies, so basically crown. You know, agents of the Crown government [00:04:00] departments were also, um, quite discriminatory in their policies and and their systems and structures as well. So, um, so I think that's quite a big indictment on on our human rights system in itself. But that was 10 years ago. And, um, the next slide. Um, it was basically a quote from a medical journal article that was published last year when, um, some of the leading medical professionals in this country undertook a survey of, of [00:04:30] all the district health boards to ask them about surgical services being provided to transgender people. Now, in this case, they're not talking about genital reconstruction surgeries. They're talking about a whole. There's a whole range of surgeries that, um, transgender people might need access to, like, um um, chest surgeries. Or there's a whole range of surgeries. So and they are all surgeries that district boards or hospitals would be providing to other kinds of people for other kinds of situations like, [00:05:00] um, cancer or all kinds of reasons. And, um, what that survey found was that basically, even though those surgeries could be provided to transgender people and we're being provided to non transgender people, um, in most cases, they weren't being offered, um, to transgender people, so there was clear discrimination like and this is Well, back then. It was nearly 10 years after the human rights, um, inquiry report. [00:05:30] So, um and that's just one example, Um, probably looking at our most important issue that transgender people face, which is inequities in the health system. But it's just one of many examples of how basically nothing really changed as a result of of that report, Um, in Rainbow Wellington. Um, I did some research where I did a postal. I did a survey. I emailed all the DH BS and most of the government agencies to ask them. First of all, what was the [00:06:00] system that they set up to make sure that they complied with the requirements of the Human Rights Act? And the answer for most of them was after a very long paragraph like this, I said, saying, Well, actually, we don't have one. And the other thing I asked them was, Did they do anything? What? What did they do? Um, in response to the, um, to the to be who I am reporting again after, you know, re writing by basically saying, Well, we didn't really do anything much at all, If anything so so [00:06:30] This is really what I'm saying is a first case study into human rights system. How is it that Parliament can say discrimination against transgender people? Um is outlawed in this country. 10 years later, we have an official inquiry that says, Well, it's still happening. Government agencies are doing it. They should all be doing, um, these changes to make sure that we get rid of discrimination and then 10 years after that again, nothing has changed so that [00:07:00] there seems to be, um, quite strong evidence that there's something seriously flawed about our human rights system. Um, at least the legally driven aspect of it. Um, So So that's my first case study. Um, would anybody else like to share or comment on that? Um, I'm actually looking into this at the moment. Uh, it's actually much better than Trans, but I'll start off with talking about Trans. I've been chasing up Statistics [00:07:30] New Zealand about the census and what the hell they plan to do about it. Um, but in my, uh, badgering, I've also found that it's not just trans people. It's a whole lot of other minority groups, like people with disabilities, mental illnesses, all sorts of things. And I'm beginning to come to the conclusion I correct me if I'm wrong that none of these changes can actually happen until they actually know how many of us there actually are. And so it seems to me [00:08:00] that this problem with the census is actually right at the root of these changes. Not happening. Um, and I, I frankly don't think that Statistics New Zealand are really taking this seriously enough. Um, but I was wondering if anyone else in the group has any thoughts about whether I'm Overblowing this as part of the problem or if I'm bang on the money with that, Um, I suspect that you've probably hit the nub in terms of [00:08:30] that being the most logical centre for the gaining of that knowledge about various minority groups. I mean, personally, I think the census this year was just, you know, I don't know what the hell they're expecting to get out of it, but there were a whole lot of various groups in society that were, I think, going to be potentially disenfranchised by the census, Um or just not count it, which was the same thing to me. Um and [00:09:00] probably to most of you here as well. Um, I have a concern about the way that the census was worded about the fact that it didn't appear to be entirely inclusive. Um, and I would have thought that we were sophisticated enough as a nation that whoever designed that census, you'd have to think if you got your head under a rock because the reasoning behind them, not the option and pre me if I'm wrong was the fact that [00:09:30] from the last time that they did it, they thought it wasn't like a real number, right? Yeah, The reason they gave me was something like that. And they said that in April they're going to ask gender identity and sexual orientation as part of the General Social survey. But I've heard conflicting information that they're going to include sexual orientation and not gender identity. So at the at this very moment, I'm nagging them by email, trying to get an interview, and they don't seem [00:10:00] to enthusiastic about that. They do get stats from other other bodies and other other sources, but I just can't like, you know, I can't understand. I'm sorry. I am sorry. Amy. I. I just can't understand. I would have thought the census would have been an great opportunity to capture that. What do they mean by not capturing the numbers? Maybe, um, these that the, [00:10:30] um The amount, like from the last census, the amount of people that, um, sort of answered, I'm not sure if there was, like, another little box or something that, um, people were lying or if it wasn't, like, an accurate number, I think, um, so what my understanding of what's been going on with the census? I mean, for a start, with the Human Rights Act being passed in 1993 and 1994 the State Department should have started a project to include us and other Rambo [00:11:00] minorities in the census. But they didn't. And, um And then, you know, 10 years ago after that report came out to be who I am again that they should have thought Oh, well, we better get on with including transgender people in the census. But again, they didn't. It was it was only because of constant lobbying and campaigning by the rainbow community. That and in fact, I think it was just through the normal consultation process, getting feedback from the normal going out of the community. We're going to do a census [00:11:30] in a couple of years. What do you think we should do about it? Getting that feedback Or you need to include sexual orientation and gender identity that they finally about, um, a year or two ago got on with trying to put us in the census. And, of course, um, they What I understand is they went out maybe about a year ago, and they did a test run of the new questions, like not just us, but, um, you know, there's some new stuff in there about Maori housing and all this. So they field tested all the questions [00:12:00] and they weren't satisfied with the responses. They got back on gender identity and sexual orientation. They thought, um, they're going to have to keep reworking it, but it wasn't ready to go in the census, so Well, that might sound OK, but then begs the question. Why did you leave it so long? Why didn't you start working on this years ago and anticipate, You know, you might have to have two or three goals at coming up with test questions to to, you know, before you it [00:12:30] was sorted out. So to me, I just felt really quite hurt as a transgender person. And, um, I still haven't actually decided whether or not I'm actually going to participate in the census because I just feel like I'm just thinking this is symbolically speaking. I just feel like I'm being totally excluded by the country, which I'm supposed to belong to that like, um like I I've been approaching us, putting my transgender identity aside [00:13:00] and approaching it purely as a journalist. And let me tell you that journalists need those stats. So when I'm doing a story when I'm doing a story not just on, um, transgender issues but disabled issues or sexual orientation issues, aids, all sorts of stuff. I just can't find the information. And and so and and from what I've seen and I've been following this quite closely is when people who are intersex or gender, variant [00:13:30] or transgendered, or any other, like some people with disabilities, write to stats and try to get answers about how to answer this thing. They they get varying responses like stats and doesn't even know how they're supposed to be filling it out. So what? I did personally and I don't care if I get in trouble for it is I just take female. Um, put my dead name and my name I use in the female, and I'm just [00:14:00] like, yeah, you guys can figure it out. If you're not gonna give me a box, I'll make you figure it out. Um, it's tough because as aside from obviously, I feel excluded as a trans person. But even looking at it from a more practical point of view healthcare, Um, as a trans woman who's on H RT, whose body is full of oestrogen, not testosterone, for example, I might get breast cancer. [00:14:30] Mhm. So wouldn't it make more sense for me to take female than male? And so you run into all these things which are not. They are a matter of human rights, but they're not just a matter of being left out. They're actually really important practical issues, um, about health care. But also there's also prisons and employment and all sorts of stuff. Um, and I think James is right. They should [00:15:00] have got onto this. And what I what? I really can't figure out. And maybe I'm just being Duff is how you can have a religion section where you write something in and people write in Jedi. And then you're worried that someone might write in something funny, like trans human Martian cyborg for the gender orientation. I mean, it doesn't It seems a little it seems like a cop out to me. OK, so I just want to wrap up that first case study because the point to remember is is what I'm trying [00:15:30] to get it. OK, obviously, transgender people face all these issues the healthcare system and not counting the census and all that. But how is it that parliament has outlawed discrimination? And yet, you know, a department of the Crown can go on year after year, just, you know, blatantly ignoring that part of the law and and get away with it. That's that's the issue that I really want to get at is. Is that why? How is it that our human rights system really is so weak and it's not, really, you know, delivering as it should. Government protects itself. Of course, by [00:16:00] that government departments can be challenged. Um, well, I I'm not. I'm not a law specialist, so I can't really speak to that. OK, so my next case study, um, tomorrow is is International Women's Day. So I thought I would talk about an issue that's that's relevant to that. So, as you know, um, in fact, had quite a lot of publicity in the last few years. Um, there's a gender pay gap that, um, various political parties have proposed solutions to [00:16:30] this draught bills flying around all over the place as to how to solve this problem. But again, I want to come back to It's a similar story, um, discriminating, Um, in terms of the gender pay gap was outlawed by Parliament in New Zealand, and I haven't got my phone in front of me, but I believe it was 1972. So it has actually been against the law to have basically a gender pay gap that you can't explain away from something other than this person is more qualified than that person. [00:17:00] Because the research shows that 20% of the gap can be explained by differences in, um, that you might be able to justify, like, you know, if if women take five years off work to have a family. They've got five years less work experience, so they only only all that sort of stuff only explains 20% of the gap. There's 80% of that wage gap that research. After the researcher says you can't explain it any other way than it's just blatant discrimination. So again, this is something that has been against the law for since 1972. [00:17:30] Um, I'm not good with math, but that's something like 40 or so years ago. So that's yeah. So how is it that, um, that again this thing just carries on year after year after year? Until finally, um, I think it was 2014 or thereabouts? A couple of very interesting court cases were brought by, um, someone who basically, let's say, works in the rest home [00:18:00] industry and basically said, OK, so I'm getting paid the same as a man doing this exact job. But the reason I'm getting paid less on average than most men is because most people who do this job are women, so that isn't equal pay for equal work. You're just you're discriminating against the whole industry, and, um, and those court cases, um, were actually quite successful. And that's what's led to this whole, um, protocol change. Now, first, the government, um, negotiated a package [00:18:30] deal and proposed some bills, and I don't know how far they got from Parliament and then the incoming government, um, has now I think both Labour and the greens have got their own, um, proposed policy solutions. But the only reason we're talking about this is simply because one person is talking to the union and says, Well, let's let's let's take them to court. Why did it take 40 years for us to suddenly get around enforcing a law? Um, that that that women had already spent like, half a century campaigning for in the first place. So [00:19:00] it's again, part of the story is that, you know, we have to wait a long, long, long, long time, um, to to get any kind of justice in terms of human rights. Um, so again, would anybody like to share? Um, on this other case study to do with the gender pay gap? Um, I'm just gonna put forward. I think this is rubbish, but one of the, um, [00:19:30] one of the defences that's been put forward is that women tend to work lower paying jobs. But, um, but from what I've found out, um, no, this is within a job. This is within two people working the same job, but we're going to hear that excuse quite often. Yeah, well, one of the graphs I would have like to show you is, um, basically the average weekly wage for men and for women. And, [00:20:00] um, there's about a $4 difference and you can see the graph. I had a graph that goes from 1990 up to about a couple of years ago, and it's kind of interesting. Um, the gap has narrowed a little bit, but again, one of the interesting things that you can see is two thirds of the decrease in the gap isn't because suddenly, society became more enlightened and started paying, you know, women's jobs more two thirds of the gap simply because wages have actually [00:20:30] basically decreased for men. So basically male dominated industries are all like manufacturing all those sorts of jobs. Um, basically, wage rates have been in decline for a generation, and that's the reason that that women are basically a big part of the reason women are catching up to me is that men are going backwards because of how the economic system is, um, so and we're still left with that. But we're still left with a persistent gap of about three or $4 on average per hour. [00:21:00] Um, that, as I said, the academics can only really explain maybe about 20% of that through things that kind of perhaps make reasonable sense other than pure discrimination. Um, the third thing that I want to talk about are our what are called tribunals. Now what is a tribunal? A tribunal is something that kind of looks like a court, but it's not. It's it's, it's It's slightly less formal. Um, it's supposed to, um, deal [00:21:30] with disputes in a way that's lower cost than going to court. And they've been set up to to cover various specialist things, including having a dispute over your rights under the Human Rights Act. So if you had a serious dispute on the Human Rights Act and it failed at mediation, it would go to something called the Human Rights Review Tribunal. That's one of dozens of of tribunals that impinge on human rights such as, Um, there's a tribunal that's around the Privacy act. Um, [00:22:00] there's another one. if you're a beneficiary and you're in dispute with work and income again, those disputes will go to a tribunal. Now. One of the things that's, um, that's blown up over the last few years is that these tribunals are getting longer and longer in terms of how long they take to settle matters. So can you imagine like you're on a beneficiary, You're an argument with an income, and you're saying like I should [00:22:30] be getting an extra $20 a week, which, for example, which, if you, a beneficiary could actually be, you know, a huge deal. But can you imagine waiting for over a year to get through that system to be found out? Actually, you were right. You you do deserve to get an extra $20 a week. And now finally, we're going to write out this check and you sort of go Well, that would have been great a year ago, but I finally just got off the dole the other day and I'm back in work. So you know that money I can put in my savings account, but it didn't really help me when I needed it. So we [00:23:00] have these kinds of issues in the human rights system. It's even worse. You can wait typically now two years, to even get an initial hearing. And like three years, it's now gone up three years now to actually get a decision. So, like you've faced some, really, quite if it's going if it's going through that system, this is a pretty, um, very serious case of discrimination with with quite substantial evidence supporting it. So it's, um, [00:23:30] and to wait three years to actually, you know, get justice from, Let's say, an employer who discriminate against you or a hospital or whatever it is or it could be, um, it could be that you were handicapped and there was something that a school was supposed to do. And, you know, you spent three years with this hanging over you before it got sorted. Can you imagine the impact on people's lives and a tribunal that set up to discuss human rights, basically exacerbating those [00:24:00] human rights? Well, it's gotten so bad that the chair of the not the Human Rights Commission, but the human Rights Review Tribunal. Um, basically, has he He's been furiously writing to to the minister's response bill. You know that every year for the last several years and now, um, made public his criticisms of the tribunal was almost that exact exact comment. It's basically [00:24:30] it's like it makes the whole system pointless if you can't help out these vulnerable people, people on the tribunal. I think basically what he is saying is that so presumably they would have divisions of the tribunal, so they didn't all have to sit together for the one case. I don't know if that's what the intention was, but, um, well, basically, it's in this case. It's essentially about resourcing. The government wasn't prepared to give them the money that they needed to get all the people they needed to hear the cases within a reasonable time [00:25:00] frame something maybe I don't know a lot about, like, tribunals and that sort of thing. But in terms of like bias, how do they screen the tribunal against things like that? For example, like if you're going to the tribunal for a gender pay gap, or like you know, a woman, um receives discrimination, and she goes to a tribunal that's filled with men. Um, like, what do they do in that sort of? I have absolutely [00:25:30] no idea. And it's also been raised as an issue. It's like, um, who who gets to a point that people who sit on these tribunals is that a fair process? They tend to be just, like, kind of mates of the government of the day. What's the process? Is it something that's going to be set up? So it is a fair and inclusive? I might be something to that because I work with a tribunal before a tribunal. I should. But I have some interaction with a tribunal completely unrelated to any of these matters. By the way, [00:26:00] tribunals Somebody who wants to sit on a tribunal. Um, my understanding is they need to apply through the Ministry of Justice. So there'll be, um, a vacancy noted on a on a tribunal board for want of a better expression, and then the the applicants will apply, and they have to. My understanding is they go through a relatively rigorous process, Um, through this application process, they have to show, um, you know, good [00:26:30] legal academic application. They have to show knowledge in relevant areas of the law. And they have to. There are tests for bias and neutrality as well when they go through that process. So I can only speak to the tribunal that I work with. But my understanding is that that's a relatively generic approach across tribunals. All right, so I don't know if I've answered it. [00:27:00] Thank you. Thank you. Um, so that's just a very quick look at, you know, three issues that are going on with our human rights system, which which tend to suggest that, um, our human rights system is not really working as we would like it to work that, um, you know, discrimination is not something that, um even though it's been outlawed, is easily going [00:27:30] to be made to go away, because no effort has really been put into, um, the enforcement side. So we basically, um I kind of guess my key messages is we have these nice words written into Parliament, but they're just kind of empty words on paper for a lot of people. Um, maybe there are some people who, you know they get through, you know, the tribunal system and they eventually get justice. But on on the whole. Like when? If if, If these tribunal systems are taking so long, [00:28:00] and if government departments can simply ignore anything that comes out of the human rights system, then then obviously, um, we can't rely on on that system to basically make much, much of an advance in our human rights. In fact, most of the changes that we've really seen, for example, coming back to transgender people because that's the area I really know about. I don't think you can really attribute it to any of these things like sure, this report came out. But But I kind of think like if the report hadn't come out then the few advances [00:28:30] that we've seen probably would have happened anyway because of the ongoing pressure from the various, you know, activist groups and so on and because, you know, public perceptions and attitudes are slowly changing. But it's not really happening because of any of those institutions. So that's why I thought, Well, I mean, the system is so broken. We really need to start having a conversation about Isn't it time? You know, we really, you know, almost started again with with working out How How [00:29:00] is it that we can actually, um, do something? Is it just that, you know, there's nothing that we can do? Well, I've got my I've got a final case study from another country called Iceland, which is going to end things on a more positive note. So Iceland, if you don't know much about them, um, you're probably aware that most Nordic countries are reasonably culturally enlightening societies, and and, um, you know, have really good welfare states and all that sort of thing and perhaps reasonable attitudes towards women. Well, Iceland, apparently, [00:29:30] um, from a lot of different assessments is kind of like a world leader in women's rights. In fact, they first elected, um directly elected a female president in 1980. So, in fact, they even had There's a big cultural moment they had in 1975 where literally they had a national women's strike, which literally meant, uh, 90% of women not only did not go to work, they refused to do any child care or cooking or community work or anything for one day, and it completely threw the country into turmoil. [00:30:00] And this kind of this is what's kind of pack behind. Um, this cultural change which lead to them, you know, electing a woman as the head of the state a few days later. And other things which are quite world leading now, Um, and and on various assessments. So, like, um, nearly half of the MP S are women. Um, nearly half of of their seats on company boards are women. Um, nearly half of management positions are women, um, [00:30:30] and so on. And so I can go through all these stats and Iceland basically, you know, kind of leads the world on on most of them now, but they also have a gender pay gap, and it's and it's quite a substantial pay gap. It's like around 14 or 15% depending on how you measure it, which is kind of similar league as as our own, um, and and they've also got equal pay legislation, which they've had even longer. They've had equal pay legislation since I think 1961. So they've had it even 10 years longer than [00:31:00] we have. And again, despite that culture, this this gender pay gap persisted, and, um, but it's I think it's a very good illustration of, um, I think an important principle of where there is a will. There is a way. So they decided, like, this pay gap is unacceptable. How can we actually change it? We've got these pretty words on paper saying there shall not be a pay gap, but obviously there is one. So basically what What they did with their law, which came into [00:31:30] effect at the start of this year, was they said, OK, we got this saying, like, there shouldn't be a pay gap. Now we're gonna add in all these enforcement mechanisms to make sure that actually, that's what actually happens. So this has been in development for a few years about, um, five years ago, they got together and created this voluntary, um, standard where, um, a business could get audited rigorously, independently audited to show [00:32:00] that they were paying equal pay and then they could advertise. Hey, we're an equal pay company. So it's a bit like what we've done here in a with like the living wage you can be, you can be accredited as a living wage employer. Um, I think although the process for this equal pay thing is probably even more rigorous and more substantial. Um, so this came in as a thing that you can show you've got these kind of, um, you know, ethical credentials as a as an employer, and then, um so just recently, they started. Well, [00:32:30] um, that kind of took us so far, but the, you know, the gap is still there, and another experiment they ran was they brought in quotas for, um, women on company boards. And I don't know quite how the system works, but that is kind of the reason why they went from, like, 20% of seats on company boards being women to It's nearly, I think it's up around the mid 40 44%. Something like that. It was essentially, um as I said, Like without that kind of legal [00:33:00] framework, kind of pushing things along as well. You're not really going to get there. So they kind of they learned from that. And they said, Well, what's the equivalent thing we can do with this gender pay gap? Or we've got this kind of voluntary system. Why don't we make it compulsory? And that's essentially what they've done. So, um, when it comes into effect properly, if if you, um, are an employer, Um, and it starts off the big companies and employers, like ones that have more than about. I think 75 employees have got a year [00:33:30] to get themselves, you know, sorted and audited. They have to basically, they have to prove basically, the onus of proof is now on the employer to show that they're on equal pay. I mean, they can't just go. Well, look, you know, there's a pay gap there, but it's all because, you know, like, the women aren't haven't got university degrees or something they've actually got You gotta have robust evidence, and you've got to be independently certified by somebody who's qualified to show that Yes, you are. You you've proven that you're, [00:34:00] um you're on equal pay. Otherwise, you get not only you get named and shame, but you get fined something like $700 a day. So the big the big, um, the big employers, like government departments and hospitals and the and the, you know, bigger private sector employers have got one year to get this into play, and then the, um, remaining employers who've got 25 or more employees have got have got, um, basically four years, including this year to, um sort [00:34:30] themselves out. And so for me, that illustrates the idea that, like these problems can be solved if you want to solve them. And it's not about in a sense, they really haven't introduced any more, right. They're still saying it's still equal pay for equal work. It's the same right as you had before. But it actually it's going to include an enforcement system that actually that's got some hope of actually working. And I think that's basically you know, the missing element is that we'd rather [00:35:00] had words on paper that we know aren't really going to be enforced rigorously. That's how we get these kind of laws on the books. But what we really need to start looking at what is more of a robust system, um, doesn't necessarily have to follow that sort of model, But I think it's that sort of thinking like, you know, this problem can be solved if we want to solve it. Um, So before I move on to a more general discussion, um, has anybody like to share on what I've just said about this sort of Icelandic [00:35:30] model, I presume. Equal pay free for work is more likely to apply in the public service, as a matter of fact. Or would that be a naive assumption compared with the private sector? Are you talking about in New Zealand, or, um, I honestly wouldn't know. Um and I don't know if I'd make that assumption because I think you got to remember, like, for example, who are the biggest employers of [00:36:00] nurses? Yeah, you know, sort of a lot of the female dominated occupations are actually state sector occupations, maybe even teachers. Now, they reckon not much recruitment of men because of child abuse issues and all sorts of things that men shy away from teaching. Now, I don't know if that's correct, but that's what's been reported. There's an awful lot of work down in this area, isn't there? I mean, I mean, in terms of, like, the union movements, um, [00:36:30] and and I send you a call. And it came time saying this was the lack of the lack of advancement in this area was the thing that was frustrating to him. Um, perhaps it was the frustration on the number of MP S, Uh, and the gender gap within MP. But I, I seem to recall that that being one of her main motivations and being active and you think that P A would have taken the matter up Well, I I [00:37:00] mean, you've got an active thing going on. I'm not quite sure what, what what it is. But it's been going for years. Sorry. The states on the gender pay gap. I mean, where do they come from? It You find the gap like you can define it. Um I mean, there's, you know, there's different ways of looking at it, like you can just get the average hourly pay rate, for example, or, you know, there's lots of different ways of [00:37:30] defining it. But the stats will come from stats and Z. Essentially, you know, they they collect all the data on on what people are being paid. Um, they do a special employment. They quite a farm does lots and lots of surveys. In fact, as was briefly mentioned, this one coming out starting actually next month, um, the National Social Survey, where, as I understand it, they are going to include a question on sexual orientation. But they haven't committed to including a question [00:38:00] on gender identity. And they kept very quiet about about that. Um, so, yeah, transgender people miss out again? It seems to be a bit of a thing. Um, we'll be sending off a furious letter, won't you? No. I'm gonna be nagging. Yeah, businesses get surveyed all the time and have to handle all sorts of data, which which then gets cleared by the State Department. And that's where this [00:38:30] comes from. One of the interest for me at the other end of the gender pay gap is that often, um, women don't actually realise that they are. There is a gap in an organisation where they might get sometimes talking about this gender pay gap. Yeah, but I wouldn't have a quote because, um, one of my one of the the clauses in my employment contract is that I don't talk about [00:39:00] but but also there's another aspect to that in that New Zealanders, like all English speaking countries, I don't know how Americans are like about this, but we don't like talking about how much we get paid. It's considered to be quite rude in our culture. So very often you can be doing the same job as someone else, and you'd never even think to ask them how to be nosy from you. It's funny how these some of these customers whose interests they actually see. [00:39:30] Um, as I understand it, most of the policy proposals that are on the table are about kind of addressing that part of it, which is like it will show in this business. The gender pay gap is 8%. I don't think that's any of the proposals are going as far as the isolated proposal, which is like, If you've got a gap, you know you're in trouble. Um, well, actually, to be technical, The Iceland thing isn't saying you can have a gap, but you got to basically be able to robustly prove why. [00:40:00] You know, you might have a 5% gap, how that can be justified. For example, Um, I think it's quite interesting, like I get really interested in how Hollywood, um, people talk about actresses getting paid less than men, and there's also the me too movement. But it's quite interesting how like Hollywood is The problems in Hollywood are actually indicative of the whole of society but it's in Hollywood that we noticed [00:40:30] in first. The media focus on Hollywood because they're prettier attracts a lot more extroverts. Speak out. All right. So, um, the next thing I want to talk about is what would a fresh start for human rights actually look like? And so I went back to the original United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, which dates back to [00:41:00] the period straight after World War Two, which New Zealand was one of the first to sign up to that. And when you look through those rights, you realise some of those rights have been written into our law, like the Bill of Rights Act and the Human Rights Act and the Privacy Act and various other acts and so on. And some of the rights haven't. And it's kind of some of the ones that have actually been written into law. The works, it's not actually like, Oh, that's great. Well, now we've got this right not to be arrested without due calls and that sort of thing. But actually [00:41:30] we've had that right for 1000 years, anyway, Actually, before the Bill of Rights Act came along, and the Human Rights Act came along. Um, there There was already existing law that gave us most of those kind of basic civil rights, like, you know, due process and law and the right to have your property confiscated. And so there was already quite a lot of that there. So it seems that actually, most of the law in our human rights system, all that really did was kind of just tidy up [00:42:00] and make all nice flash and polished more or less what our existing rights were. Um, the rights that did get sort of skipped over in that declaration of human rights are things like the right to employment, the right to Social Security and all those sorts of things. So you don't see that in the Bill of Rights Act, and you don't see that in the Human Rights Act. The Human Rights Act is really essentially an anti discrimination act, and not much more. So the first thing if we're going to go back and say, Well, there's something fundamentally wrong [00:42:30] with the human rights system. Maybe we also need to go back right back to the beginning and actually ask ourselves, Well, which rights should actually be you know actual rights that actually means something and not just sitting on a piece of paper that we've sort of symbolically signed up to. And and as we learn tonight, if you're going along going along to the other presentation tonight, basically every few years New Zealand has to stand up in front of the United Nations get criticised by half a dozen other countries for, you know, not doing enough on unemployment and [00:43:00] those sorts of things. But apart from that, there's no real enforcement of those rights. So So the first thing to consider is that maybe we need to start again and and actually look at all these rights and make sure there's some kind of system that addresses them. Um, even if it's a start off by making it very transparent, what our performance is on these rights, like having an independent body actually saying this is actually the true measure of unemployment and how well it's going well, this is the true measure of poverty, and how many people [00:43:30] are actually meeting the poverty line and and so on. Um, but when we do have these other rights to make sure that, like I said, There's an actual system of enforcement, um, that that is actually going to work. So, um, and in terms of taking action again, this isn't something that's really on the political agenda. It's kind of it's It's like we take for granted that, Oh, we've got a Human Rights Act and the Human Rights Commission. But [00:44:00] no one's people are talking about individual things. Individual problems like the transgender community is quite up in arms about. We've still got no access to real access to health care, but no one's actually looking about how this overall system is really broken. It's not on the political agenda yet, so I sort of feel like if we are going to make something, um, change, it's going to be a bit of a long term project, and what we really need to start off with is is to build up a network of people who are interested in this issue [00:44:30] who want to research it, Um, not for, you know, academic publication, but to actually present a robust critical case that that's a problem that needs to be addressed, that there are solutions and they'll find sky solutions like this Icelandic model for example that can actually address the problems. If we do want to, if we have that political will and to start to start maybe getting it on the agenda for maybe for the next election, which which comes around pretty quickly in New Zealand like it's only like we'd have to probably [00:45:00] work on this for no more than two years before they start knocking on people's doors in Parliament and saying, Hey, this is something that your party should really have in your policy proposals for the next election. So that's really where I'm coming from, um, in terms of this discussion, But, um, great to hear some of your feedback and ideas as well. So final thoughts and feedback from people. Well, I know that Jeff Palmer, who of course, is responsible for the [00:45:30] um, bill of New Zealand bill of drugs, said at the time. And he may have changed his mind since. Of course, um, that the economic and social rights weren't considered because of the resource implications and the worry. I suppose you could call it that the state would end up with, um, demands on it that couldn't be met, that I'm paraphrasing, but that that sounds. That sounds [00:46:00] like something that he would say, but that, And so the rights that are there are basically I suppose you could say they're about liberties in a way. And, of course, people like to say, Oh, it goes back to Magna Carta, which, of course, people forget was actually a an arrangement between the crown and the nobles who were often fighting each other and even trial by jury can't entirely [00:46:30] be based on that. But there is one good clause which says, and it still applies is that justice delayed? Is justice denied That is one of the that. And of course, what has happened is the the, um rights in the Bill of Rights. The New Zealand Bill of Rights are really, I think, articulations [00:47:00] of of the common law. In many ways and statute, law is now probably more important than common law because common law was judge made law and some of it was positively mediaeval. Um, but anyway, I better stop on. Can I ask you a question? I just wanted to ask you whether you thought the answer is to do an amendment to the Human Rights Act or whether um, you would feel that it's you want a new start with something different? [00:47:30] Well, I think we need to think in terms of a system. And the and the Human Rights Act is in fact, only one piece of law. So there's several pieces of law. And as we see, I mean, for example, if we just focus on anti discrimination, which is a big, important part of our human rights, particularly transgender or, um, a sexual minority or whatever, Um, and how that system isn't working, it's it's we don't need. We don't really need the law to say you've got more rights, you need [00:48:00] ground. Well, it's basically it's the enforcement and the compliance and the fact that state agencies can seem to just ignore the law, even though the law says it's, you know, it's binding on them. Sorry, Maggie's got a point, definitely something that I've been seeing pop up quite frequently. So, um, at the like, various different conferences they go to and the different communities that come along [00:48:30] to that, um, they'll be talking about like how they're fine with signing things and they want to be like world leaders with things but they're not good with enforcement. And that's what everyone has been saying is they want them to, like, walk the walk, not just talk the talk regarding employment. There's I OK, this might sound like science fiction, but it's actually damn, it's reality. The unemployment problem is only gonna get worse. [00:49:00] And so you get these people stuck in the past saying off the employment rate just gets better. Then people will employ people because of the free market and that the fact of the matter is is that the robots are taking over. I'm not joking. This is a very real thing. The government I was talking to and about this. The government is well aware of this self serve machines, um, automation, all that kind of stuff. So when we talk about economic rights, [00:49:30] it's pretty obvious I, in my opinion, that we need new laws because the world is changing and, um, well, I don't know, but that but that is that is seriously like People laugh at me, they say, Oh, you've been watching Too much Terminator. But no, no. Yeah, and you can laugh and I laugh, too. But no, no, no. It's a real thing. It's a real thing to be more work done on what the jobs of the future really are, assuming that there will still be some [00:50:00] sorts of jobs. And, um, because there's also suggestions that the Polytech are not resourced enough to help with retraining and things like that, that was the whole point of going to be a lot of relearning and retraining. The new campus is deliberately set up, and Jacinda Ardern opened it, and she said, This is This is the training of the future, as in what we train people in is going to change. But But my point is, it's easier to discriminate [00:50:30] people for jobs if there's less jobs to go around. And that's a very so if you want equal employment and jobs, you can't rely on the free market to do it because it ain't gonna do it. OK, um, I'm aware of the time anybody got any quick final make. One final point in relation to Here's a bit of legislation, but let's not give effect to it because it might create social and economic problems. We've got a lot of legislation there [00:51:00] that's not being put into effect and organisations are being prosecuted. For example, um, the Employment Relations Act is something I know about. So if an organisation doesn't, um you know, they they'll have all the policies under the ER A. But don't give effect to those policies and can't prove that they are doing that They can be and are prosecuted under the under the ER A and and that is happening fairly regularly. So [00:51:30] I'm kind of thinking Will organisations have to to prove that they can give effect to this legislation? Why aren't state agencies being challenged that they are not potentially giving effect to the legislation that we've been discussing here? And it just seems, you know, I mean, put it bluntly. It's a WTF moment for me. OK, well, that kind of that kind [00:52:00] of like where I got to as well on this issue. Yeah, so maybe we leave it on that eloquent note. Thank you all very much for coming out on this cold and wet and windy night and maybe I'll catch up with you later in the evening. Just up the road. Thank you. 1004.
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