Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has signalled a move towards only reviewing the salaries of Members of Parliament every three years to move to a fairer system.
The Remuneration Authority recommended a 3 percent payrise for MPs this year, but Ms Ardern froze that for 12 months on Monday.
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"When you look at percentage increases as a formula for salary increases that only continues to extend that gap between MPs and those on higher salaries and the middle and those on the other end," she said on Monday.
Ms Ardern told The AM Show the current formula the Remuneration Authority is legally obliged to follow is not fair.
"They have to use a formula that's pegged to the increases that public servants have," she said.
"The issue that we have is that we... increase nurses' pay because that's what should happen and has happened that then has a flow on effect to us.
"I'm not comfortable with that because what we're doing is trying to close a gap."
But the deal Ms Ardern's Government has just negotiated with nurses would review pay every three years and she believes her own pay rises should be the same.
"[It's] less for me about the politics than fairness," she said.
"There is an issue there about why shouldn't we be on a three year cycle the same way that other public servants are."
Ms Ardern said on Monday the Government's coalition and confidence and supply partners New Zealand First and the Greens were "totally supportive" of the decision.
She said she'd had brief conversations with National Party leader Simon Bridges and ACT party leader David Seymour, who "reading between the lines I think probably agreed with the move as well".
Newshub.
