The Government is urgently pushing through new legislation - lifting the threshold for pay-equity claims based on gender discrimination. 

The Bill has already passed its first reading supported by all coalition parties and Parliament's moved swiftly onto the second. 

These changes have prompted plenty of backlash, but Workplace Minister Brooke van Velden says there was an appetite for these changes.

"It became clear to me at the end of last year that there was appetite within my Cabinet to do this - and I think it's pretty clear that there was an impetus, so that's what's making the change."

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