Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Greenway for her question. The Labor government and the labour movement are always striving to promote fairness in Australian workplaces. To support that proposition, I would submit that it is this government which has been in office during the creation of 800,000 jobs, that it is this government which is educating and training our young for the future, that it is this government which is remedying unequal pay for women in the community services sector, that it is this government which wants safe roads and which is acting to make sure that truck drivers return home safe at the end of their rostered work, that it is this government which is delivering secure retirement incomes by increasing superannuation from nine per cent to 12 per cent, that it is this government which has abolished discrimination against older workers in access to superannuation and that it is this government which is scrapping superannuation taxes for the low paid. But this is not a government which seeks to dump the blame for the challenges of the national economy on the backs of 1.8 million public sector workers.

Fairness in Australian workplaces can never be taken for granted. It must be jealously guarded. We must be vigilant against threats to fairness. But fairness in Australian workplaces is under attack today. Let us have a look at those Liberal state governments—they are not a looming risk to fairness; that risk is a reality. Every patient, every student, every family is affected by the cuts to public sector jobs in Australian workplaces. The state Liberal chainsaw job massacre is underway. We know you cannot have fairness for public sector workers while they are being maligned by this view that, if we could just get rid of tens of thousands of public sector workers, miraculously the nation would be a better place.

Let me unpack who some of these public servants being attacked are. There are 600 transit officers in New South Wales being cut. What did they ever do to deserve a Liberal attack?

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