Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to make a contribution after a somewhat unedifying contribution from the member opposite, who's normally, I must say, very polite. Without a doubt, the Australian government's most important economic responsibility is to improve the living standards of its citizens. Indeed, the members gathered behind me here are very proud to come from a political party where that is our central goal. We are here, all of us in this parliament, because we have electorates of people who desire to live a better life in this country. Our job, our reason for being as members of parliament, is to give them the tools and resources they need to create opportunities for their families and improve their living standards.

Our record is something that we, as Labor people, are so incredibly proud of. If we look at the period of time between when Bob Hawke was elected as Prime Minister in 1983 and when Julia Gillard left office in 2013, the average living standards of Australians more than doubled. One of the things that we are most proud of about that period of growth in our country is that that happened across the income spectrum. So, yes, wealthy people in Australia improved their wealth over that period, but, most importantly, the poorest people in our country doubled their living standards. Now, that is a Labor legacy that everyone on this side of the House is very proud of.

I want to talk a little bit about the contrast with the last eight years. What we hear every day in this parliament from those on the other side is hubris and spurts of anger and enthusiasm about economic issues and what brilliant economic managers they regard themselves to be. But what do the facts tell us about this? The Australian Bureau of Statistics collects data every two years that tells us about the disposable income of Australians across the income spectrum. What that shows, very sadly for the member for Aston, is that, over the last eight years in this country, the living standards of the average Australian family have gone backwards. After all the talk that Australians have heard about how brilliant these people are at managing the economy, we've had a growing economy where ordinary people are going backwards. I ask you: what is the point of economic growth if the families that we represent are actually becoming worse off over time? But that is exactly what is happening.

Why are we seeing this change in how our economy's going? We hear a lot about jobs, jobs, jobs in this parliament from both political parties—and that's a very important part of economic growth—but what we don't hear enough about is work, work, work and wages, wages, wages. This is the fundamental problem facing our country and our country's economy. If you go back to the time of Hawke and Keating, the problem was jobs. Once you were in a job, things were going to be okay for you and your family. But the truth is that today there are all sorts of ways that employment has changed that mean that someone in our community, in our electorate, can have a job and are still not able to put food on the table for their families.

This is not a small problem that affects just a few people here and there in our electorates; there are two million Australians who either have no work at all or are working but do not have a job that supports their family's livelihood. Those more than a million people in Australia who are underemployed are not just looking for an hour or two of work here or there. On average, those people are searching for 15 hours more work a week. What we're seeing is millions of Australian households falling short by hundreds of dollars a week to buy school shoes and books for their children, to put food on their table and to get insurance for their home—and all those other essential things that we, as members of parliament, are responsible for ensuring our constituents are able to do.

One of the facets of this very important problem is that employers in this country have found some very dodgy ways to get away with not abiding with conditions that workers in Australia have fought for, for many years. One of the examples I want to point to is the gig economy. We hear nothing on the other side of the House about the changes in employment and how they're affecting people's lives. But I wonder if those opposite realise that there are a million Australians today who are getting all or part of their income from the gig economy. The way those arrangements are structured means that many of them are not making minimum wage; they don't have proper insurance; they pay for their own uniform and for their own equipment. All these things that the union movement fought—for decades and, sometimes, for more than a hundred years—to secure for workers have been just dispensed with, because these companies find it, perhaps, an irritation to pay their employees properly. Well, this is the sort of thing that Labor is focusing on, because we are on the side of these people who we know are struggling out there.

On the other hand, we have a government that, instead of trying to fix the problem for people, is actually trying to cut their wages. So that's the difference you've got: they want to cut wages; we want to stand with ordinary Australians in helping them to a better life.

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