Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens oppose this bill. No other worker is getting a 43 per cent pay rise in this cost-of-living crisis. In fact, wages are still flatlining and women are still underpaid. Until all women get a 43 per cent pay rise, the incoming Governor-General should not.

This is no reflection on our support or our respect for the appointment of Sam Mostyn as Governor-General. Whilst the Greens strongly believe we should be a republic, if we must have a representative of the monarch of Australia, Sam Mostyn is an inspired choice. It's wonderful to have another woman in that role and one so very strong on gender equality and financial security for women. Sam Mostyn's work with the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce was very impressive and provided many excellent recommendations to the government to actually improve women's equality. Not all of them did they listen to.

In her previous role as chair of the WEET, Sam Mostyn championed paying women more in multiple recommendations—for example, seeking to raise the wages and improve the job quality of early childhood educators, including ensuring fair remuneration, access to professional development opportunities and mechanisms for career progression; elevating the status of care work and attracting a diverse and skilled workforce by valuing and adequately compensating care workers; ensuring that minimum and award wage-setting processes take into account what would be considered an appropriate living wage for employees; and ensuring adequate government funding to support living wages, decent work and the capacity to progress and develop in careers in, for example, the early childhood education and care sectors, aged care and disability support. These recommendations strongly suggest that the government invest in a pay rise for feminised industries in recognition of the historical undervaluation of their work.

What wasn't recommended in those recommendations was an increase in the salary of the Governor-General. How can we support a $200,000 pay rise for the Governor-General, regardless of the person currently filling the role, when we're still drastically underpaying our lowest paid workers? The Greens oppose this bill, and we'll move a second reading amendment in the Senate for wage increases for all low-paid workers. We'll also move a second reading amendment in the Senate for Australia to become a republic. While previous Governor-General office holders have had their salary discounted because of their receipt of government—usually military—pensions, and the proposed salary for Ms Mostyn is in line with the convention to align it with the salary of the Chief Justice of the High Court, it's still an egregiously large increase in salary. Without this bill, the incoming Governor-General will still be paid $495,000, the same as the previous male incumbent and more than all other preceding governors-general.

What planet are we living on that I'm having to stand here and point out to this Labor government that a $200,000 pay rise for the Governor-General, putting them on $700,000 a year, is absolutely callous while millions of Australians struggle to afford their groceries or pay their bills? This is not a reflection on Sam Mostyn herself, but I'm sorry; no-one needs to be paid that much. Who else is getting a 43 per cent pay rise at the moment? It's an absolute insult to people struggling with the cost of living, coming from a government that is totally out of touch with what people are facing. It aligns the Governor-General with other overpaid executives and bureaucrats on taxpayer dime. The CEOs of corporatised government services like NBN and Australia Post are paid over $2 million a year while overseeing cuts to services and bungled rollouts. The Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock is on $1 million while she oversees interest rate rises that have caused so much pain to families across this country.

The government has its priorities all wrong. This legislation is even being rushed through parliament. If only Labor showed a similar determination for fixing the housing crisis. The Greens oppose this obscene increase in salary for the Governor-General and will continue to fight for real cost-of-living relief for all Australians.

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