Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Wages fell by 0.5 per cent. Yet the government is hell-bent on giving big business an unfunded $50 billion tax cut. Where is the wages surge? In the mining sector, profit is up 50 per cent in the December quarter; in construction, profit is up 32 per cent; and in professional services, profit is up 31 per cent. 'What is behind it?' those on the other side ask? Well, a combination of weaker wages growth, people working fewer hours, and higher underemployment. So companies are thriving, and the workers are paying for it. Customers are paying for it too—ordinary Australians, banking customers.

Research from the interest rate comparison website Mozo shows the big banks increased their margins above the cash rate across virtually every retail bank product last year, while at the same time the RBA cut rates by 50 basis points, from two per cent to 1.5 per cent. So ordinary Australians are paying higher interest rates to help the banks create higher profits. And still the Liberal government is desperate to give the same companies a $50 billion tax cut. Forget any delusions that somehow ordinary Australians will benefit from some so-called trickle-down effect—not if they are investors, because, thanks to franking credits, Australian residents who own shares in companies are effectively taxed only once, at their personal income tax rate, and most profit from big business is not reinvested; it is paid to shareholders, so it will not help local investment. What is more, a third of the tax cut that this mob wants to give will flow offshore. A fat lot of good that is going to do the average Aussie! This government puts big companies ahead of small and medium businesses every single time.

I grew up in small business. I ran a small business for 30 years. I have spent a lot of time talking to other small businesses. Many of the small businesses in my electorate of Macquarie are unincorporated. They are sole traders. Some are micro-businesses paying tax at their personal rate. Ninety-eight per cent of small businesses will not benefit from this big business tax cut. It is not going to help their cash flow and it is not going to help demand. In fact, all it is going to do is lead to the big companies having more money in their pockets. And, as always, it is the workers who are going to pay the price. There are plenty of Australians who are being hurt by this government.

In the same breath as pushing this tax cut, I am stunned to hear this government not wanting to lift the minimum wage, to give anyone a decent wage rise. In its minimum wage submission, the government makes it clear it simply is not interested in there being a decent wage rise for those low-income earners on $17.17 an hour. The government say the minimum wage and award classification are only part of a safety net of workplace relations policies, public services and transfer payments. But, bit by bit, those are the very things they are stripping away.

On workplace relations, they are undermining penalty rates for 700,000 people in the hope that it will flow through to every single award in every single sector. They have policies like freezing the Medicare rebate. There are little things that they think they will get away with, like freezing the amount of money the unemployed or pensioners or carers can earn before they start to lose some of their pension. In public services, there is the cut in health and the cut in education, refusing to fund things properly. Everywhere they can, they cut, cut, cut. Transfer payments are another area. These are things that help to make this a more equal society. They are a safety net. With family tax benefits, all they want to do is freeze them. And they would do more if they thought they could get away with it.

Low-paid workers who will benefit most from a rise in the minimum wage are going to be young, female and single. You only need to look at the other side to see where their priorities are. If you are a family, you are hurting because of freezes on family payments. If you are young, you are hurting because you cannot afford a house. If you get a pension, you are hurting. Every single thing that those opposite do is about hurting ordinary Australians.

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