Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lalor. The member for Lalor might be surprised that 12 months ago the Australian government had a different policy. It has not always been the policy of the Australian government to get wages moving.

In fact, in the whole history of the wages price index, ever since the ABS first put it together, there have only been nine quarters—in its whole history!—where it fell below two per cent. Every single one of those quarters had the same side of politics with its fingerprints on those quarters. Which side do you reckon? Every one of those nine quarters had their fingerprints on them.

For those people who wanted to get wages moving, for those people who needed to get wages moving, what answer did those opposite provide? For low-paid workers trying to make ends meet, they provided no answer. To the underpaid workers in aged care, those opposite provided no answer. To workers stuck on 20-year-old WorkChoices agreements, those opposite provided no answers.

We're familiar with leaders of the opposition providing no answers. Tony Abbott managed it. He gave Mark Riley no answer for 28 seconds. They have managed no answer on wages for their entire political careers—no answer on wages that entire time, and that silence has hurt households, has hurt the economy and has hurt the budget.

With the turnaround in the budget figures, as the Treasurer has made clear, 40 per cent of what has changed is because of employment and wages outcomes that have changed since the government changed. Workers on the minimum wage needed a government that would back them, and we did. Aged-care workers needed a government that would back them for a pay rise, and we did. Workers on those 20-year-old WorkChoices agreements, with no hint of improved conditions in sight, needed a government that would cancel those agreements, and we did. Women needed a government that would ban pay secrecy clauses, and we did. Those who miss out on benefits and those who missed out on an enterprise bargaining system that was modern enough to actually deliver for them needed a government that would change the bargaining rules, and we did.

And, when we did that, what was the gloom and doom from those opposite about the fear of wages going up? The member for Mallee said it was 'feeding the beast'. The member for Nicholls said it was 'a recipe for chaos and disruption'. The member for Banks described it as 'grotesque'. The member for Longman—and I love this—said that getting wages moving 'was pure socialism'. Senator Cash said that it would 'close down Australia'. (Time expired)

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