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Speaker 1: Marilyn Waring, remember the name. Once an activist, always an activist,

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Speaker 1: took it upon herself to form her own select committee,

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Speaker 1: if you don't mind, and she and a bunch of

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Speaker 1: other MPs and interested parties open their doors for submissions

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Speaker 1: on pay equity and the changes the government made that

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Speaker 1: they don't like. Now. When doors like that are opened,

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Speaker 1: people of like minds tend to wander through, and they

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Speaker 1: sit around all agreeing with each other about how bad

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Speaker 1: things are. The Ensuing Report, which came out yesterday, tells

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Speaker 1: you exactly what you thought it might. Now. The problem

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Speaker 1: with pay equity is it's an unsolvable problem unless you

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Speaker 1: take on a North Korea Cuba type view of the

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Speaker 1: world and simply get the government to make all the rules.

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Speaker 1: The simple tooth of it is, different jobs have different values.

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Speaker 1: Another truths Some women choose work that doesn't pay as

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Speaker 1: much as other work men do as well, but not

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Speaker 1: as much. Some of the work that doesn't pay as

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Speaker 1: much as predominantly done by women. The most famous case

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Speaker 1: involved a woman called Bartlet and the aged care sector.

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Speaker 1: Rightly or wrongly, jobs of compassion and care tend to

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Speaker 1: be done by females. I would argue that's largely because

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Speaker 1: they tend to be nicer people overall, But that would

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Speaker 1: probably lead to a charge of me being sexist, which

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Speaker 1: I not. What I am is a realist and you

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Speaker 1: can see the issue. Should age care workers be paid more? Probably?

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Speaker 1: But if they were, who would fit that bill? Well,

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Speaker 1: the people paying the age care bills obviously. Could we

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Speaker 1: artificially boost their pay well, that is where we got

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Speaker 1: into dreadful trouble. They ended up comparing aged care workers

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Speaker 1: with mechanics and got a mass of pay rise troublers.

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Speaker 1: It was always false. Mechanics are not age care workers

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Speaker 1: anymore than air stewards are. You can look for commonalities,

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Speaker 1: twist logic all you want, but you either artificially mess

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Speaker 1: with it or you let the market be the market.

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Speaker 1: Most jobs have a rationale as to why they pay

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Speaker 1: what they do, and at all times, all jobs are

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Speaker 1: open to all people, depending on desire and skill. So

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Speaker 1: essentially Marilyn and her mates have wasted their time. Logic wins,

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Speaker 1: the market wins. If you want more money, do a

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Speaker 1: job that pays more, male or female. For more from

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Speaker 1: the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks that'd

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Speaker 1: be from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast on

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