New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has announced she and her ministers along with public service CEOs will take a 20% pay cut for six months. ‘If there was ever a time to close the gap between different positions, it’s now,’ Ardern said during a coronavirus press update. She said the the move was to acknowledge New Zealanders who have lost jobs, taken pay cuts or who were reliant on wage subsidies during the Covid-19 outbreak. ‘And while it in itself won’t shift the government’s overall fiscal position, it is about leadership’, she said. The pay cut will not affect frontline public-sector workers such as nurses, police and health care professionals.

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