Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Working families right across Australia are under financial pressure. We have seen so many challenges which working families have had to face in recent times, including the highest interest rates—the second highest in the developed world—and inflation now running at a 16-year high. These, of course, impact on the circumstances of working families. Their ability to manage the family budget is impacted on by all of these considerations, including petrol, groceries, child care and health insurance premiums. There have been 12 interest rate rises in a row since 2002, and we have had seven interest rate rises since Work Choices was introduced two years ago. All of these have placed real pressures on working families.

The Australian Fair Pay Commission will be reviewing applications for increases to the minimum wage over the coming weeks ahead of their pay decision in July. I note that there are reports in today’s papers relating to the ACTU’s claim for an adjustment in minimum wages. The government will be asking the Fair Pay Commission for a fair and reasonable outcome. We want an outcome that takes into account the cost of living pressures on working families and we want an outcome that takes into account the need for restraint in the economy because of current inflationary pressures—inflationary pressures which we have inherited from our predecessors. Inflation is the enemy of working families, and it is critical that we reduce those inflationary pressures.

It is in that context that today I again call on Australia’s business leaders to show some restraint when it comes to their salaries at the top end of remuneration. I do not want to see a situation where we end up with two Australias: one part of the country enjoying boom time conditions while the rest of the country takes the pain of tougher financial circumstances.

The financial pressures on Australia’s working families have been made worse by the policies of those who preceded us. The threat of rising inflation did not arise overnight; it has been rising for some years. In fact, there were 20 consecutive warnings by the Reserve Bank in previous times, each of which was ignored by the previous government when it came to dealing with capacity constraints in the economy, particularly when it comes to skills and infrastructure. But, if you look at their most recent record in government, Work Choices has in fact savaged the ability of working families to manage with decent wages and to balance the family budget. AWAs ended up slashing the wages of many Australians. Remember that the member for North Sydney said:

When I took over the job I don’t think many ministers in cabinet were aware that you could be worse off under Work Choices and that you could actually have certain conditions taken away without compensation.

Well, hold the phone. I would have thought that the former minister, as a member of the government and the cabinet at the time, would have looked carefully at what the bill that he introduced as law actually contained. You only need to look at the facts. According to the ABS, workers on AWAs work more and earn less per hour than those in the same jobs who have been employed on collective agreements. Then there is the impact of Work Choices on women. Women on AWAs earn less per hour than those on collective agreements. ABS data shows that Australian women on AWAs who work full time earn $2.30 less per hour on average, or $87.40 less per week based on a standard 38-hour week, than those on collective agreements.

We have before us now the Liberal Party with its newfound tradition of compassion. This is the same Liberal Party which should reflect on the impact of its legislation, namely Work Choices, on working families. If the Liberal Party want now to become the party of compassion, they should stop trying to slow down the passage of the government’s workplace relations transition bill so that all Australians can be protected from AWAs. But still they cannot help themselves. We had the Leader of the Opposition making this statement on Meet the Press last Sunday:

… it’s not that we are supporting Labor’s changes—we are not opposing them.

Let me repeat that in terms of a crystal clear position of absolute policy clarity on the part of the loyal opposition:

… it’s not that we are supporting Labor’s changes—we are not opposing them.

This was clearly intended as a clever piece of coordinated confusion between himself and the deputy leader, who on Insiders a few moments later had this exchange with Barry Cassidy. Barry Cassidy asked: ‘But you are supporting the abolition of Work Choices?’ The Deputy Leader of the Opposition said: ‘No, we are not opposing it.’ Here we have the party opposite putting itself forward as the alternative government of Australia, an alternative government of Australia which says it has this newly discovered tradition of compassion alive in its every being. Here is the first task of compassion: let the bill go through the parliament—let it go through the Senate—so that working families can be protected from your AWAs.

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