Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last month, the government's brutal choice to strip one in six workers in my electorate of Paterson of their penalty rates began: 11,722 workers will lose up to $77 per week. Even before that cruel cut, Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed that these very people were already earning well below the national average. In my electorate of Paterson, 22 per cent of households have an income of less than $650 per week. That's right—$650 per week to pay the mortgage or rent; to insure and maintain a car; to pay skyrocketing energy bills, electricity or gas; to fit the kids out with school shoes and send them to school; and to put food on the table. I would like to know, Mr Speaker: how far do you think that $650 would go in this room? Not very far.

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