Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It certainly is a fight we are going to have—a fight for working Australians whose working conditions and basic pay levels are under attack from this government and plenty of their acolytes in the business community every day of the week. So we relish the opportunity to talk about penalty rates. We understand that penalty rates are not only important for the 4.5 million Australians who receive them but also important for our economy. What do we get from the apologists opposite—those opposite from the trickle-down brigade? They went to the people of Australia at the last election with their stunning proposal of a $50 billion tax cut for the wealthiest companies in the world, including a tax cut for the big banks of $7 billion, as if that is going to produce jobs and growth. This just demonstrates how out of touch they are.

One thing that the last election did was demonstrate that the Australian community will not buy your trickle-down economics. They are heartily sick of it. In fact, around the world, organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and many other reputable authorities have pointed to the trickle-down program as not only being a source of lower economic growth but a source of political polarisation right around the world. Exhibit A here is the economy of the United States, where the wages of the middle class have been ripped to shreds in recent years and greater armies of working poor have been created on the back of a minimum wage of $7 or $8 an hour.

Those opposite come into this House and argue that we should take down our minimum wage; we should erode the pay and working conditions of some of the poorest people in our community by ripping into their penalty rates. I can tell you this: we relish this debate. We want to have this debate with this government no matter how long it lasts, because we know if we go to the people, particularly on the question that the member for Bowman went on about before, we will thump you out of your seat. Even in your seat there are middle-class families that benefit from penalty rates. You somehow think that penalty rates are just about a few young workers, who you do not mind exploiting. Penalty rates build the wage of many middle-class families in our community: kids who are going university; second income earners who are reliant on a few extra hours a week. You erode the middle class in this country at your peril. They know what you are up to now, because they can see penalty rates as being the leading edge of the reintroduction of Work Choices in this country. It is an attack not just on penalty rates but an attack on minimum conditions right across our workforce. They will not cop it.

When you offer an obscene program such as the one you took to the last election of a $50 billion cut for large corporates, nothing really for small business and certainly nothing for people on modest incomes, when you attack the conditions of 4.5 million Australians, you have a fundamental impact on confidence in the economy and you have a fundamental impact on growth in the economy. A middle class is not a consequence of strong growth; it is the force behind strong growth in an economy. Well-paid workers such as we have had in the main in this country for the last 30 years have been a source of that growth. With our economy now 20 per cent larger than it was at the end of 2007, it is a fact that they have been the source of growth. But in other countries which have gone down the trickle-down road, like the United States with huge armies of working poor and right across Europe where they do not pay or respect people properly, their economies are not doing well.

The workforce does deserve some respect and at the moment in relation to the Commonwealth public servants and their role in the public sector of our economy you, the government, have no respect for your own workforce. You are out there ripping into their working conditions, trying to give them a real wage cut and somehow pretending that is good for the economy. It is not good for the economy. But I will tell you what: it is also not good for trust. Trust is the very basic secret ingredient that makes good economies work. So when you show so much disrespect to your own workforce, when you have a record of putting in place Work Choices, the Australian public know what you are really on about. So do not come in here and preach about small business. Small business depends on the purchasing power of the low- and middle-paid in our community if they are going to do any business. And do not go on about coffee shops. Who is going to buy the coffee if you continue to erode the wages and working conditions of the people— (Time expired)

See this speech in context