Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw. We have just had 10 minutes of demonstration that this mob over here haven't come to terms with the decision that the people of Australia made on 21 May this year. They want to have a discussion this afternoon about political promises and about the commitments that we've made and delivered to the Australian people. Let's go through them.

We promised to get wages moving and we've introduced laws and passed them through this parliament today which will ensure some of the lowest-paid Australians have the capacity to bargain effectively and collectively to get their wages moving. You'd think that the coalition opposition, which was so concerned about low-paid workers and the projection of wages, would have voted in favour of sensible reforms to get wages moving. What did they do? They spent the entire morning moaning and whingeing and obstructing and attempting to stop Labor's sensible plan moving through this House. But, thankfully, the majority of members of parliament did not agree with them.

We have stuck good with our commitment to get wages moving for the lowest-paid Australians. Within a day of winning the election, we wrote to the Fair Work Commission, supporting an increase in the minimum wage for Australia's low-paid workers and it was delivered—on average a $40 increase for some of Australia's lowest-paid workers. What did this mob over here say about that? It was all too hard. Well, it wasn't all too hard. We promised it, we delivered it and there is more to come. We promise that we're on the side of aged-care workers because we know that, unless we can lift the minimum wages of aged-care workers, we aren't going to be able to provide the services to some of Australia's most vulnerable people. We want to improve the level of care in aged care and we want to improve the wages of aged-care workers. We promised it and we're delivering it.

We promised to fix the mess in the energy system. You'd think the member for Hume would show a just a little bit of humility, because there's not a person in this parliament who is more responsible for the abject mess and destruction that we've seen in energy and energy policy in this country than the member for Hume. If dopey looks could power an energy system we'd have it nailed. We'd have it nailed because that's all we see. All we see from the member for Hume—

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