Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to make some comments on the appropriations bills and, more broadly, on the government's lack of an agenda for most Australians. We might remember that the government ran an election campaign entitled 'Jobs and Growth', under which sat nothing. The government's only understood policy was to find a way to provide $50 billion by way of tax cuts to, predominantly, large businesses and banks and, in some cases, multinational companies that do not reside in Australia. That is $50,000 million spent on cuts to provide opportunities, perhaps, but the idea that those fiscal cuts to our budget—money that would be lost from providing support in hospitals or investing in education and skills—was going to be a panacea for what ails Australia is false.

Whilst the government scraped over the line, I think it is fair to say that the Australian people were not convinced about the message from the government. Whilst I think people are concerned about their jobs and employment prospects generally, I do not believe they believe the government are sincere in their concerns for workers and for those seeking work. If we look at what is happening not only in Australia but more broadly around the world, there are some concerning things happening in comparable democracies. We see the rise of Donald Trump—a person who identifies problems and has simplistic solutions or, even worse, seeks to find the wrong reasons for the problems that beset that country. He seeks to blame people—in some cases ethnic minorities. He seems to blame others rather than perhaps finding a solution to some of the challenges that that country faces.

If anyone wants to get a real sense of what has happened to America—and it is quite disturbing, when you think back to a time when often, certainly in some respects, we looked to America as an exemplar in terms of jobs, in terms of income, as a wealthy nation that had a middle class; you really have to wonder what is going on that has led to such disquiet, to protests in the streets and to the capacity for so many Americans to consider that Donald Trump is the answer—I would refer members and senators to Joseph Stiglitz's book. I have looked at it and I am relooking at it. A Nobel laureate who won the Nobel Prize for economics, he identifies what has happened to the United States: the hollowing-out of the middle class; the impoverishment of working-class people; the fact that millions and millions of workers who are working a full-time job are still living below the poverty line; the fact that they do not have access to health care; the fact that a rich nation like that impoverishes so many of its citizens; the fact that, through de-industrialisation and through globalisation, there has been no effort to stop the growing gap between the very, very rich and the majority of Americans.

If you look back and draw the comparison between what has happened in the last 40 years in America and the growth in the obscene wealth of the one per cent and the 0.1 per cent of those citizens compared with what has happened to the middle-class and working-class Americans, it is a salutary tale, and it is an example that we must avoid. The reason why it has some relevance and pertinence to our situation is that we currently have a government that does not address issues about the rising inequality in our own country.

How could it be the case that the only answer to provide secure, decent jobs for Australians is to provide tax cuts in the order of $50 billion to multinationals, big banks and others? The notion that trickle-down economics works has been repudiated by all eminent economists over many years. When Milton Friedman was around, it might have been the case that this notion took hold and people believed that equality was what you had to sacrifice for growth. Well, that has been repudiated. Even bodies such as the World Bank and the IMF have made it clear, along with the OECD, that the growth of economies is adversely affected by inequality. The less equal your society is, the more likely you are not going to grow your economy. Further to the point, in that economy, of course, people are not sharing, and that is why there is a lack of confidence and faith. In America you see it writ large with the fact that Donald Trump is running for the most senior, most powerful political position in the world. Despite all of his conduct, behaviour and offensive, abusive admissions, he is still running as the presidential candidate for one of the major parties. I think that is an indictment.

Labor's fear is that, if the government does not attend to some of the very serious issues in our own society, we will tread down America's path. I am concerned, for example, that we make sure we maintain the minimum wage. Bill Shorten and I made a submission last parliamentary term to make sure we arrest the decline in the minimum wage. Recently, the shadow Treasurer also added his voice to support this important social benefit to the lowest paid workers in our society. We do have a relatively high minimum wage, and that is a good thing, because we want to make sure we have a decent society where people, when they work a full week, can afford to make ends meet and can afford to pay the bills, look after the family, pay the mortgage or rent and keep a car running. I think people in this place can sometimes forget how difficult it is to live on the minimum wage or do not have any idea how hard it would be, particularly if you are not supported by family, to try and survive on a very low wage.

We need to make sure we do more, continue to have the argument and repudiate those who would like to see the minimum wage fall. We would like to see it grow. I would like to see it increase as a proportion of the median wage. I would like to see it not fall. In fact, if you look—even with the efforts in recent times in maintaining the minimum wage—it has started to fall against the median wage and the mean average wage. I think that is something that we need to arrest, and Labor is going to make sure we say more about that in the coming weeks and months.

Equally, we are concerned that, as we speak, the Fair Work Commission is looking at cutting the real income of low-paid workers by changing penalty rates. We know the Liberal Party love the idea of cutting penalty rates. That seems to be the only thing that they all agree on: 'Let's cut penalty rates. Let's abolish it. There are going to be lots of jobs that will come from it.' What it means is that there will be real income taken out of the economy. Of course employers would like to pay less, but they will have customers with less money in their pockets if they go down the path of supporting cuts to low- and middle-income earners who rely upon penalty rates to make ends meet. We do not support it, and that is why we made a submission to the Fair Work Commission to argue against any cuts. We impress upon the Fair Work Commission not to, in any adverse way, affect people that are struggling—particularly at a time where the wage growth in this country is as low as it has been in a generation.

Since figures were collected in 1998, we have not seen wage growth so low. In many parts of our labour market there is actually a wage recession. Wages are going backwards in real terms for many Australians. So, when your constituents talk to you, Deputy Speaker, or talk to me or other colleagues about struggling, they mean it, because their wages are not going forward and they are struggling and we need to be sensitive to that. I do not think the government has a plan other than to hope that the commission cuts penalty rates—and, again, Labor stands against those cuts and will argue that strongly. We did say, if elected, we would have intervened and argued that strongly. Of course, the government is hoping the Fair Work Commission does its work for it and makes the cut in real terms to low-income earners, and I think that is a dreadful shame.

Again, it is the government turning its back on those people that need the most help. It is the movement away from what, I think, is a fair society towards what has happened in the United States. People in that once great nation, which seemed to allow people to realise the dream, now just have empty promises. They have broken promises and broken dreams because of the impoverishing of the working class and the hollowing out of the middle class—people cannot find a decent job. They are working three or four jobs just to make ends meet. I think this government has to wake up to what is happening in this country. It might not be happening in such a pronounced way as it is happening in the United States, but it is happening. Inequality is at a 75-year high.

We have seen the bank CEOs recently come before a parliamentary committee and argue that they do not need any royal commission. Of course, with their wages in excess of $10 million each, they do not understand why people are affronted by the sort of money they receive and the bonuses they get, when they treat their own clients the way they have. The government does not have answers to some of these issues around the growing casualisation of work, the fact that people are not finding full-time work, the fact that 90 per cent of the jobs created in the last 12 months have been part time when people are looking for full-time work, or the fact that there is now the highest number of Australians underemployed, according to the ABS, with 1.1 million Australians saying, 'We are looking for more work but we cannot find it.' They cannot find more work. They are struggling and unemployment is at its highest in our history. So there are some real issues.

The slogan 'Jobs and growth' will not cut it. The notion that people still believe in trickle-down economics—that you give all the benefits to the wealthy and it trickles down to the less wealthy—has been repudiated and, quite frankly, I think Australians do not believe it. There might have been occasions when Australians once believed it, but they do not believe it now. We have to have a government that is in tune with the needs of ordinary Australians and believes there should be decent conditions of work. Where people are looking for full-time work, there should be opportunities to find it, and, when there is massive exploitation on the scale of 7-Eleven, something should be done about it. There is no point mentioning it in the election campaign and forgetting to put it into the top 25 priorities. It would appear that at least $100 million was not paid to workers at 7-Eleven. One hundred million dollars—this is just one example and, yet, what has the government done in two years to respond to the most blatant exploitation of workers? There are still workers that have not been paid back the money owed to them. A $100 million debt is owed to workers and the government has done nothing about it, obsessed as it is with the double dissolution bills, the registered organisations bill, which is so esoteric that no-one in the real world knows what we are talking about, and this ABCC bill, which is about introducing a regulator for the building industry which already exists. We have a fair work building commission that has coercive powers now. This was the big election about nothing. It is like a Seinfeld episode. We have the registered organisations bill, which one in 1,000 Australians knows anything about, and we have the ABCC bill, which is supposed to be introducing a regulatory body that already exists—that is the ambition of this government. That is its intent. That is the reason upon which the election was predicated. It just shows you how empty and hollow the Prime Minister is, how empty and hollow the election campaign policies of the government were, and why it was left with a margin of one in the lower house.

If the government wants to get serious, it should take heed of Labor's policies—making sure that there is fairness at work and making sure that, when we do grow our economy, people share in that growth. It is about inclusive growth. As I said, it is not just Labor saying that. The IMF and the World Bank have said fairer societies—societies that are more equal than others—will grow faster and will grow for longer because people can see the benefits in growing the economy if they are beneficiaries of the growth. It makes perfect sense. But, when people have lost faith in an economic system where they are not the winners—in fact they are being deprived of the benefits—and they see the five per cent at the top getting everything and themselves getting nothing, it is no wonder we see the rise of Donald Trump in America and we see certain minor parties here benefiting as well.

This government has got to get real, listen to the concerns of working people and businesses, invest in skills, invest to make sure that we can grow, invest in our industries too—not turn our back again on manufacturing like we saw with recent decisions by this government—and engage in order to make sure we prosper as a country. Labor is willing to sit down with the government on a series of these issues because they are so important; they are in the national interest. But the government has to stop just tending to the top end of town. The merchant banker has to become the leader of this nation, because up until this point he has been an abject failure.

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