Lisa Wilkinson and I would never claim to be friends. On our good days, we have begrudging respect and on our bad days we’ve been awful to each other. But the furore over her complaint that she was paid less than her previous Channel Nine co-host, Karl Stefanovic, for effectively the same job, and, disappointingly, the failure of labour market economists to defend her, confirms yet again just why the gender pay gap is so difficult to close. So difficult you can’t even complain about it four years later in an autobiography.

If Lisa and Karl were paid average weekly earnings add or take a bit, or did something equally unpleasant, like cleaning lavatories, no doubt there would have been more sympathy. That there isn’t, is why the gap persists.