Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister, and I refer to the Prime Minister's previous answers. Does the Prime Minister agree that there is no precedent for a formal government submission which tries to justify holding back a pay rise for Australia's lowest paid because of who their parents are or who they are married to?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member, just like her colleague the member for Gorton, begins her question with a falsehood. The submission of the government does not recommend that the minimum wage should not be increased. It leaves the decision as to the change to the minimum wage to the independent umpire, and it simply makes the point that not all people on the minimum wage live in low-income households.

The honourable member objects to this observation. She could claim—

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, it is a penetrating glimpse of the obvious. She could also claim it is plagiarism. Labor's 2011 submission: 'Low-paid individuals are also distributed across the household-income distribution and are not necessarily concentrated in the lowest household-income decile.' That was 2011. Labor!

In Labor's 2012 submission, for example, around half of all low-paid workers lived in the top six household income deciles. Of course, from 2013, the panel should also consider the fact that all low-paid workers do not necessarily live in low-income households. That is a fact. The honourable member for Fenner wrote about that. It is one of the factors to be taken into account by the Fair Work Commission. The reality is, as the member for Fenner has observed and previous governments have observed, that our means-tested tax and transfer system is the primary means for addressing income inequality. But, plainly, all of those factors will be taken into account by the independent umpire, and, in the final analysis, the best form of welfare is getting a job. Everything we are doing is creating jobs.

Ms Husar interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lindsay.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What is Labor doing? I would like to hear just one thing. I would be happy to hear even one spurious, hypothetical idea they could produce, but they do not have anything. They have not one policy that would encourage one business to invest one dollar or hire one worker. Their position today is thoroughly antibusiness, antiworker and antijobs, and they want to run the nation like a union. We know what the Leader of the Opposition did when he was running the AWU. We know how he represented workers then. They sold them out then, and, as an alternative government, they are selling them out now.

Ms Husar interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lindsay is warned.