Cathy O'Toole (Herbert, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am proud to rise in this place to stand up for around 13,000 workers who are being dealt nothing short of a devastating blow by the Turnbull government with their complete lack of understanding of and action on protecting penalty rates for vulnerable workers.

This government uses the language of the fair go and they talk about fairness, but the reality is that they are completely out of touch with low-income families and our veterans and ex-service personnel. This government's trickle-down economics is not creating jobs, but it is creating an environment where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer; consequently, inequality is at an all-time high. Townsville's unemployment is just under 10 per cent and our youth unemployment is at an all-time high of over 24 per cent. The net result of this government's failure to take action to save penalty rates has left around 13,000 people in my community facing a massive pay cut or working longer hours for the same take-home pay. This is not a fair go or fair in any man's language. Less money in our community will mean less spent in locally-owned small businesses such as coffee shops or boutiques, which reduces cash flow in the general economy. This is in stark contrast to the Turnbull's government's rhetoric that there will be a great flow-on effect from this massive pay cut. That is simply false. The Turnbull government's trickle-down economics doesn't work, has never worked and will never will work, and it will certainly do nothing for workers in Townsville.

Queensland Senator Ian Macdonald said this would be a good thing for the north. I beg to differ. Judging by the workers I have talked with, nothing could be further from the truth. Some of the lowest-paid workers are getting one of the biggest pay cuts ever. How could this possibly be called a good thing? I can assure Senator Macdonald that the 13,000 workers in the Herbert electorate don't think that a pay cut is a good thing.

Townsville hasn't felt the projected uplift, but big businesses have extra money in their back pockets. A cut of $50 a week might not mean much to our multimillionaire Prime Minister and other wealthy cabinet members, but it means a lot to vulnerable workers in Townsville. Losing $50 a week from someone's take-home pay may be the difference between being able to pay the rent and buy groceries, or to simply just get by, or not. A loss of $50 a week for someone like Jaidyn Bar in my electorate of Herbert means a lot because for him it may be the difference between being homeless or not.

The Turnbull government is hell-bent on Americanising everything in Australia. They want to privatise Medicare, ruin our public and Catholic education systems and create a clear class divide. They want the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. And they want to cut wages to over 700,000 Australians. In fact, the only thing that this government isn't following America in is legalising marriage equality.

I stand here today to say to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that the Herbert community doesn't want your top-hat thinking. We want to be able to access affordable and quality health care when we are sick, we want all of our children to have access to quality education and we don't want your wage cut. Inequality in Australia is at an all-time high and growing. It appears clearly evident that this fact has totally escaped the Turnbull government because nothing is being done to address inequality.

This government is also spruiking that this pay cut supports small business. The member for Leichhardt, Warren Entsch, said that penalty rates were a huge impediment in Far North Queensland, wiping out small business and adding to the region's unemployment. How out of touch can one be? I have met with a diverse range of small business owners over the last 12 months and every single owner has mentioned two major problems: the rising cost of electricity and commercial leasing. Penalty rates do not and have not rated a mention. The business owners that I talk with recognise that their employees are their greatest asset. While businesses are closing across North Queensland, the Turnbull government and the member for Leichardt are turning a blind eye to the real issues facing North Queenslanders: the desperate need for a national plan to address the sky-rocketing cost of electricity, and that does not rely on a pamphlet solution.

In my experience as a small business owner, it was clearly evident to me that the people I employed were and always will be any business's greatest asset. It is also widely acknowledged that there is inequality between male and female wages and superannuation, and cutting penalty rates does nothing to address this major issue. There is absolutely no reason why this government and large clubs cannot support their workers in the north by not cutting penalty rates.

Brothers Leagues Club owns a few clubs in Townsville. Their website says that all profits go back to its members and the community. Surely there could be no greater community benefit than ensuring low-income workers receive a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. (Time expired)

See this speech in context