Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

As this parliament rises after two weeks of sitting, the last sitting before the next budget, we have learned, and Australians have learned, several things about the Turnbull government. We have learned that the Turnbull government do not support a decent increase in the minimum wage. We have learned that they support unilateral cuts to penalty rates. We have learned that they support cuts to people's take-home wages, their pay packet, the way that people get by. We have learned that they do support a $50 billion tax giveaway to big business and that they do support a tax reduction for millionaires. What we have learned and what Australians have learned is that the government have no idea about how ordinary Australians live their lives.

We have also learned something else: they are obsessed with Labor and with me. Every question time these days, the Prime Minister reminds me of that famous Ronald Reagan quote about Jimmy Carter in the 1980 debate, where Ronald Reagan said about Carter, 'There you go again.' There the member for Wentworth goes again, talking about Labor, talking about unions and talking about me. But Australians have worked out the government and this Prime Minister. They know that the louder he shouts, the more pressure he is under. They have learned that the more he yells, the worse it gets. They have learned that the government wish to shout down their critics, not focus on the issues of everyday Australians.

In the last eight question times, in the last two weeks, the government have referred to and spoken about Labor more than 400 times, they have spoken about me more than 250 times, and, other than one mention about the European Union, they have attacked unions on 150 occasions. Let me say this to the government and the Prime Minister: the more you talk about me, the more you show you have no vision or idea about the future of this country. You are not interested in the needs, the dreams, the hopes and the desires of ordinary Australians and the manner in which they are constructing their lives.

Let me also put on the record that I am proud of the Labor Party's record of standing up for workers. I am proud of the union movement's contribution to standing up for workers. I am proud of what I have done in standing up for workers. We will never accept lectures about outcomes for workers from people who have never negotiated on behalf of workers. I have never got stuck behind a fleet of Liberal government limos on the way to a picket line or to support people who have been sacked or unfairly dismissed. I have never tripped over a Liberal politician on the way to visit the bed of a sick worker. I have never tripped over a Liberal on the way to fighting for better wage increases, better deals and better job security for workers.

These are the people who argue against defending penalty rates. The government are the people who argue against increasing the minimum wage in a decent fashion. They vote against increasing compulsory superannuation, and they deeply oppose the role of unions to organise and collectively bargain. When did it become wrong in this country for unions and employers to negotiate with each other for win-win outcomes for workers and their businesses? One of the things this nation needs is increased productivity. It needs better-paid, secure jobs for its workforce, and it needs profitable businesses. Unions and employers negotiating in the interests of people is what this movement that I am proud to lead always stands for. It is right down the line of what people outside parliament think should occur.

For the Prime Minister and his cronies on the front bench to attack Labor and the unions for negotiating good outcomes for employees and good outcomes for business makes no economic sense whatsoever. It is a most strange line of attack from the government. Why do they do it? We know why they do it. It is because this is the last line of defence for a desperate Prime Minister in survival mode. We know what his backbench privately say. They have to tar Labor and smear Labor because, when that fails—as it inevitably will—this Prime Minister will fall, as he should.

Opposition members: Hear, hear!

He is terrified of his backbench. What an unpleasant Sunday evening it must be as they wait and scan for the latest poll or whatever. The point about this nation is that you do not govern from week to week or from fortnight to fortnight. You set your directions, you go the distance and you stand up for what you believe, like my united team do. What a joke it was yesterday when the Prime Minister, puffed up with his righteous indignation, said, 'I've stood up for the battlers, and I've stood up for the big end of town.' We buy the second part of it; I get that. But how can the Prime Minister say he is standing up for battlers when he is prepared to stand by and see the penalty rates of nearly 700,000 people covered by awards cut? How can you say you are standing up for battlers when you cut pensions? How can you say you are standing up for battlers when families on $60,000 have their family benefits reduced? How can you say you are standing up for battlers when you freeze the Medicare payments going to the patients, when you do nothing to stand up for our Medicare system?

You judge a Prime Minister in office by what they do, by the choices they make. This Prime Minister always chooses the big end of town. Only this Prime Minister could have dreamed up giving millionaires a tax cut by getting rid of the deficit levy when he has tripled the deficit. Only this Prime Minister could have an unfunded corporate tax giveaway of $50 billion, which will see $7½ billion go to the banks' profits and bottom lines. Only this Prime Minister will fight so hard against trade unions but fight tooth and nail to stop a banking royal commission—and that commission will come. This is a government that chooses the big end of town over working families every day.

Just when I thought the government could no longer surprise me, I scanned their minimum wage case submission—and I lost half an hour of my life I will never get back! It is 85 pages—25,000 words—and there is not a single argument, not a single line, to argue for a decent increase in the minimum wage. Yesterday, the Prime Minister was so proud that he could reel off the weekly minimum wage rate. What he does not understand is that he may know the price of the minimum wage but he does not know the value of the minimum wage. He knows the cost, but he does not understand the meaning it has in the lives of everyday Australians. It is a disgraceful submission—and I am not surprised that the cabinet ticked it off, because it has got the hallmarks of the Turnbull government. But they have a line: 'Low-paid workers are more likely to be young, female, single and without children.' This is the government's message: 'Do not be young; do not be a woman; do not be single; do not be low-paid.' As to the fact that many low-paid people are young, are women and do come from low-income households, we in Labor do not see that as a reason against the minimum wage increasing; we see it as a reason to increase the minimum wage.

Then, of course, we saw this notoriously feminist government run an argument which I have not seen in a long time. What they said was that, actually, people on the minimum wage are all secretly hiding in rich households! They almost implied, somehow, that they are gaming the system—like a nice offshore bank account—and that somehow it is a strategy to be poor, because you are actually secretly rich. Well, that is not the case. This is a Prime Minister who once famously said to Jon Faine: 'What you've got to do if you want to sort out housing affordability is get rich parents.' But today we have seen this government say to working women: 'If you want to be rich, just marry rich people.' This is not a strategy for wages or economic justice in this country.

On the way into this chamber today, I met Margarita. Oh, and our great barrister Prime Minister says: 'Well, if this happens and that happens then maybe Margarita won't get a pay cut.' What the Prime Minister does not understand about low-wage workers and people on awards is that they do not have individual bargaining power. Why should Margarita have to negotiate to keep her penalty rate? Why does she have to front up to her employer and say, 'I know the award has gone down, but please can you keep me at the higher rate'? Why do people who have a minimum wage and a penalty rate as a right have to renegotiate for something that was already theirs to begin with?

When we take on this government on the penalty rates issue—and we will take them on every day—every day this bunch of blackguarding smear merchants attack the Labor Party, attack the unions and attack me. Play your best shot, because once you have played it and you have failed, your Prime Minister will be out and this government will soon follow him to the electoral pages of history, with very little to show for it, other than standing up for the big end of town. We stand up for ordinary people.

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