Face of the Day

The prime minister and opposition leader are in a political feud over who is lying about the overhaul of the pay equity regime.

Last week’s surprise law change raises the threshold for workers to prove they’ve been paid poorly as a result of sex discrimination.

The move will save the government billions of dollars – which would’ve otherwise gone to increased wages.

Labour’s been calling that a pay cut, but National’s Chris Bishop, the party’s attack dog and previous campaign manager, said that’s just not true and the Labour Party has “crossed the line into outright lies”.

Bishop issued a press release ahead of his party’s caucus meeting at parliament on Tuesday morning accusing Labour of “lying about our changes to pay equity to avoid talking about their own flawed approach”.

The prime minister responded to an avalanche of questions on his way to caucus, where he attacked Labour for “resorting to lies and misinformation”.

Christopher Luxon has hit out at a social media post that depicted Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden as a Nazi, which was shared by a Labour Party volunteer account before being deleted.

“When you see a Labour Party comparing ministers to Nazis that is not right, you attack the issue but you don’t attack the person,” he said.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins has called the post “totally unacceptable” and instructed the party to put better checks and balances in place to avoid it happening again.

Luxon has also taken a swing at a column published by a senior reporter in the Sunday Star Times that used the c-word to refer to National’s female ministers.

“We saw gendered abuse from media, a senior media writer, who often raises these issues with me.

“I often stand here in front of you talking to you about gendered abuse, yet it was being directed by those people who have raised those issues with us,” he said on Tuesday.

RNZ