Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk about wages growth and the first act of the Albanese Labor government, the Jobs and Skills Summit, because this government has spent the last two years following through on the findings of that summit and what drove that summit.

The summit's focal topics included keeping unemployment low, boosting productivity and raising incomes; delivering secure, well-paid jobs and strong, sustainable wages growth; expanding employment opportunities for all Australians, including the most disadvantaged; addressing skills shortages and getting our skills mix right over the long term; maximising jobs and opportunities from renewable energy, tackling climate change, the digital economy, the care economy and a Future Made in Australia; and ensuring women have equal opportunities and equal pay.

In August 2022 the member for Hawke and I had our own outer western suburbs jobs and skills summit. Our local summit helped to inform the national Jobs and Skills Summit in Canberra on 1 and 2 September 2022. At both summits, we heard similar information. We heard that the feminised industries, particularly the care economy, were being left behind in terms of wages. We heard that the industries, including child care and aged care, that those opposite would rather we didn't mention had bargaining systems so complicated that wages were going backwards and there was understaffing and reduced productivity.

I stand here now, a proud member of the Albanese Labor government, knowing that we are delivering wage increases of up to 15 per cent to aged-care workers and early childhood educators and carers. Why? Because the coalition government purposely kept wages low and allowed enterprise bargaining to collapse—so much so that only 14 per cent of industries were covered by an agreement and we experienced a decade of Australians going backwards financially, with stagnant wages, particularly those in the care economy. Those things have now been addressed. Our industrial relations legislation has seen industries opened up and negotiations made easier for workers, to ensure that their wages will continue to grow.

After the Jobs and Skills Summit, the government took steps to reinvigorate bargaining with our significant reforms under the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Act. These included enacting the new supported bargaining stream, which has reduced the barriers for low-paid sectors to access the benefits of bargaining; making the better off overall test simpler and fairer; and giving the Fair Work Commission more power to arbitrate and resolve intractable bargaining. Because of this government, there are now half a million more Australian workers covered by current enterprise agreements. This is boosting wages and workplace conditions.

To put it bluntly, Deputy Speaker, when the Labor government say they're going to do something, they do it. As an election commitment, the Albanese government said that it would prioritise addressing the cost-of-living crisis with well-thought-out and practical measures, and that what is what we've done. In less than a full term we have successfully turned a decade of coalition government deficits into Labor surpluses. We've ensured wages growth. We have the gender pay gap down to 11 per cent, the lowest it's ever been. This is a government that I am proud to be a part of, a government committed to increasing wages, tackling inflation and ensuring that unemployment doesn't rise. There has been carefully planned and carefully implemented legislation brought to this place, one step at a time, delivering on the commitments that we made on taking government and delivering on the things that we found in the skills and employment summit.

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