Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett spent the day in Tauranga today, first meeting local businesswomen for coffee at Classic Flyers.

The morning talk was given to around 30 women in the Boeing Room, with issues such as the ‘gender pay gap' and female representation on company boards taking precedent.

She began by mentioning a recent magazine survey, in which female respondents said they feel they don't have the same professional opportunities as men.

This led into the topic of the ‘gender pay gap', which Paula claims represents a 12 per cent difference in pay between men and women in New Zealand.

'I cannot fathom it,” she says.

She talked about wanting to ‘tidy up the public service' and deliver better pay for women there, and trumpeted the recent pay equity victory for homecare workers.

'Getting them up from $16 an hour closer to $20 makes a huge difference, but there's so much more to do.”

However, she falls short of advocating a similar pay rise for workers in all fields and industries.

'We generally increase the minimum wage by 50 cents a year, but we don't want to increase wages so much that it makes it unaffordable for businesses to hire people.”

Paula also discussed how, although women make up 60 per cent of university graduates, they're still not getting promotions, and she puts much of the blame on businesses.

'It's time some of our workplaces started to doing things differently.”

She used her own journey into parliament as an example of what a woman can achieve when she has the confidence to seize opportunities.

'If there's a job that requires 10 key attributes, a man who only has six of them will still throw his hat into the ring, but a woman with nine might be reluctant, and then she ends up working for that man.”

Afterwards, Paula travelled to the Tauranga Police Station, where she met with local police in her capacity as Police Minister.

One of the initiatives she was keen to talk about is the new organised crime task force for Tauranga, recently announced by the government.

'A population increase naturally requires more police,” says Paula. 'But anecdotally I'm also hearing there's a bigger gang presence in Tauranga.”

She says part of the problem may be Australian deportees returning to New Zealand and taking up a life of crime here.

'There's no doubt more drugs are getting into New Zealand as well,” she adds. 'We pay more for drugs here, so suppliers know they can get top dollar.”