Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today, in this parliament Labor members have made a choice. We have chosen to take seriously the challenge the Fair Work Commission has handed down to all of us and to stand up for the 600,000 low-paid Australians who have been delivered a pay cut. We have made a choice to act because we can act; this parliament can do something about this pay cut which affects Australia's lowest-paid workers, including thousands of people in my electorate of Scullin. In doing so, we are aware of the context: today, wage growth is at a record low and inequality is of course at a record high. Under these circumstances, it is simply unconscionable that Australia's parliament would not act to provide redress to people who need our support. As we do so, we remember on this side of the House that it was this government that referred these questions—and really everything that matters to any Australian who works for a living—to the Productivity Commission, it is this government that created the licence to put downward pressure on wages and it was the then minister for employment who talked about a wages explosion as a problem Australia had to solve. We of course face the reverse problem: too many Australians do not have enough to get by and we have a government that is blind to this. We can do something about this by supporting the Leader of the Opposition's private members' bill and by supporting secure take-home pay.