Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The hysteria and fearmongering about this bill is all they've got. Senator Cash is indeed—as the Leader of the Opposition told us yesterday—a gift to the nation by being left in that opposition shadow minister portfolio. She says it will lead to 'more strikes and less jobs!' This spouting hyperbolic nonsense—she looks like a demented real estate agent, popping up, running these weird lines. It'll unleash industrial and economic—actually, that was unfair. I'll withdraw 'real estate agent' because that was unfair to real estate agents.

These are speakers' quotes from the last couple of hours: 'It'll unleash industrial and economic chaos,' 'Unions will rule over the ashes of Australia,' 'The bill will potentially close down Australia,' 'If wages go up, Australia will close down,' 'If we have wage rises through this bill it will be feeding the beast.' The member for wherever she's from said: 'All businesses will go broke; businesses will all just close!' That's apparently what's going to happen if this bill is passed.

Let's be clear what's really going on. The Liberals are desperate to stop this bill, as it will reduce barriers to bargaining and actually get wages moving again. That's the point of the bill, and it will especially help lower paid workers, who are overwhelmingly female workers. The Liberals always fight against wage rises. In a decade there was not one piece of legislation in this country, not one real action, to ever push wages up. That was a deliberate policy that they had. It's the entire point of the Liberal Party, isn't it? When you boil it down and strip away all the rhetoric and the nice little dot points and cute little phrases, they exist for two reasons: to protect those who already have the most wealth, and to stop workers getting a greater share of the pie. That's the point of them. That's who donates to them. That's who funds them. That's who props up the whole rotten edifice over there.

I'm proud of the record already of this government. We've shown our colours: 5.2 per cent. We backed it at the Fair Work Commission, a rise to the minimum wage. Last week we backed a rise for aged-care workers. A royal commission recommended it, the former government wouldn't do it and we did it: a 15 per cent wage rise for aged-care workers.

Their former finance minister admitted—in a rare outbreak-of-truth moment—that it was a deliberate policy of the former government: 'It's a deliberate design feature of our economic management to keep wages down.' That's what he said. Another uncharacteristic outbreak of truth came this week, I think, from the shadow Treasurer. He was asked by journalists why he opposes the industrial relations changes. He said, 'Because it would push up wages!' He should probably tell some of the members, because we've just heard quite a number of them say in the same speech, 'This is an outrage because it'll push up wages,' and in the next breath, 'but there's no evidence that wages will rise.' That's a direct quote from the member for Mallee who just spoke.

It is also amusing when they talk about productivity, which we've heard a bit about from those sitting here. Apparently it's going to hurt productivity. That's nonsense. It's pretty bizarre they've raised productivity, because their record on productivity is amongst the worst in the OECD. Over their decade in office, in government, we saw less productivity before COVID under the Liberals. In 2013 we were ranked 10th highest in the OECD for productivity, 1.7 per cent growth. Not terrific but a damn sight better than their record. In 2018: fifth last, negative productivity growth, minus 0.3 per cent. They have no basis to lecture us on productivity.

The bill is urgent. There are claims—false ones—that it's rushed. There's been extensive consultation. There'll be a Senate inquiry. There have been months of consultation with employer groups, with unions—I should have issued another trigger warning before I said 'unions', for those over there—academics and experts, the Jobs and Skills Summit. Australians want this done. Wages are going up at 2.6 per cent now, yet inflation is running at 7.3 per cent. So, no, in answer to the cries from those opposite, we can't wait another month. We can't just think about it for a little bit longer over Christmas. Australians have waited for a decade as their wages have fallen. They shouldn't be made to wait longer because of delays here, because the parliament can't do the job it's paid to do. It's been through the election. It's been through the Jobs and Skills Summit. There have been months of consultation.

In particular, in closing, this is so important for women in this country. For too long, women's work has been undervalued and underpaid and concentrated in insecure sectors and conditions. Our economic recovery from the mess left by those opposite cannot be based on women's work continuing to be undervalued and unequally paid. The gender pay gap in this country is 14.1 per cent, and let's be very clear: this bill will put upward pressure on wages, which is what we need, and it will particularly enable lower paid workers in female dominated industries to actually have a fair crack at the enterprise bargaining system. Only about 14.1 per cent of workers in the country now have access to the enterprise bargaining system. That needs to improve, and in particular we need to help those lower paid female workers. I commend the bill to the House.

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