Libby Coker (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognise that under this Government, Australia has experienced near stagnant wage growth;

(2) notes that:

(a) low wages are a deliberate design feature of this Government's economic policy;

(b) the budget showed real wages for Australian workers are expected to fall under this Government;

(c) budget figures show that Australia is wealthier than we expected but there will be no meaningful benefit of that higher wealth to the wages and salaries of Australians; and

(d) while all Australians deserve a pay rise, women, especially suffer under this Government's wage-failure due to the enormous 13.4 per cent gender wage gap; and

(3) calls on the Government to put the Australian people at the centre of their economic decision making and get wages moving again, starting with an increase to the minimum wage.

After eight long years of job insecurity, weak wages growth and rising underemployment, this government remains committed to wage suppression and historically low wages growth. Amazingly, in 2019, former finance minister Senator Cormann confirmed this. He said in an interview, 'Low wages is a deliberate design feature of our economic architecture.' It's amazing, really, to be proud of actively pursuing the flatlining of wages and less money in people's pockets. Sadly, nothing has changed. The Morrison government continues to have the dubious honour of presiding over the longest period of low wages growth in our living history, with a projected figure of 1.25 expected in the next financial year.

This obsession with keeping wages as low as possible is accompanied by an attack on our industrial relations system and workers' bargaining powers, mechanisms that give workers a say about their wages and the conditions under which they work. But the Prime Minister and his Treasurer somehow continue to believe this is the way to stimulate the economy. But, according to leading economists, it will do just the opposite. Chief economist at the Australia Institute, Richard Denniss, says the Treasurer has 'missed the opportunity' to help those on lower wages. He said:

The easiest way to get people spending a lot would be to boost the wages of low income earners, to boost the benefits of the lowest income earners in the country.

Mr Denniss's words make absolute sense, because if people have no disposable income they will not spend, and no spending means less money in the economy to grow jobs, boost business and increase wages.

But, more importantly, this inept approach means people are stymied. Many will be left behind and others will struggle to reach their potential. Such missed opportunities are tragic, lack vision and do nothing to stimulate our economy or investment in emerging industries and smart minds. If the Morrison government wants to ever get back to producing those 'back in the black' coffee mugs it will need to do a complete turnaround, ditch trickledown economics and instead have a plan that boosts wages for our low-income earners. But, while this makes sense, it's unlikely. The Morrison government's blueprint for this country leaves workers with a 2¼ per cent real pay cut this financial year and a quarter per cent real pay cut next financial year. In 2023 and 2024, there will be no real wage growth under this government. That adds up to 11 years of coalition failure, 11 years of putting Australian wages and salaries at the bottom of their priority list. For a relatively wealthy nation, this is a cruel blow. You would hope that government would want workers to share in the wealth they have helped to create, but that is not this government's modus operandi. As we know, the Morrison government have deliberately built in low wages as a design feature of their economic policy. Shame on them.

It is women who are often worse off. Currently Australia's national gender pay gap is 13.4 per cent for full-time employees, with women on average earning $242.20 less each week than men. While men suffer under woeful wages growth, women suffer more. We simply cannot tolerate that. Women should get equal pay for what they do. Women should earn the same superannuation.

So Labor will fight to build an economy that's stronger and fairer and we will put wage growth at its centre. Labor will put wages as first priority. We will begin moving them and we will start with an increase to the minimum wage.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Gladys Liu (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to talk about wage growth. But, before I start, I must say: if you don't have a job, it's absolutely meaningless to talk about wage growth. The Morrison government is a government that understands the importance of empowering Australian men and women to be able to raise themselves up. We understand that the Australian people need a hand up, and it's the role of the government to provide that hand up. This is why we supported the Australian people with the JobKeeper and JobSeeker packages, ensuring that through a time of global hardship no-one in our country was left behind. Beyond that, we have emphasised the need for getting Australians back into work, creating the JobMaker scheme to make this happen.

We are coming out of a global economic shock that bears similarities to the Great Depression. While that period was bleak for all those alive at the time, here in Australia our economy is already bouncing back at an envious rate. This is partly due to the Morrison government's commitment to jobs and getting the unemployment rate below pre-crisis level. In doing so, our government will deliver stronger wages growth for hardworking Australians. We recognise the link between low unemployment and stronger wages growth, and we will fight for all Australians to get this done.

Under the careful and considered hand of the Morrison government, the unemployment rate is forecast to get back to pre-crisis levels just two years after its peak. This is a remarkable effort when you consider that it took eight years to return to pre-crisis levels after the recession of the 1980s, and 10 years after the 1990s recession. With Treasury and the RBA forecasting unemployment to fall below five per cent by the end of next year, it's clear that the Morrison government has been delivering on its promise to the Australian people of a stronger economy, and with that comes stronger wages for hardworking Australians.

I would like to note that after the last global financial crisis, when Labor was in power, they were never able to get unemployment back to where it was. Do you know why this was? It's because Labor are poor economic managers. A tale as old as time, but it's a reliable adage. Labor may be quick to forget the damage they inflicted on the Australian people by letting unemployment remain high. This remains the case for one of two reasons: either they weren't interested in lowering it, or they didn't know how to. I don't know which is worse.

The Morrison government has no interest in repeating the mistakes that the Labor Party made. Instead, our government is ensuring that Australians have the opportunity to increase their skills and knowledge to easily get back into the workforce. Our government is delivering tax cuts for more Australians to put money back where it belongs: in the pockets of the Australian people. We know the importance of giving Australians their own financial cushion to lean on for support, and the tax cuts we have delivered will provide that. The Morrison government's tax cuts have meant that household incomes have continued to grow in every quarter and are up 4.8 per cent over the year.

The Morrison government is a government of sound economic management and will continue to deliver for the Australian people.

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Corangamite for bringing this motion forward. This motion is clear. It concisely outlines matters on the public record about the Morrison government's incompetent mismanagement of wage growth, and it points back to one key point: this government's inability to manage the economy, through failing to recognise the importance of wages growth. Under the coalition, Australians have endured eight years of record lows in wages growth. We've seen more than 40 consecutive incorrect forecasts, overestimating wages growth through seven Liberal budgets and seven updates. They always announce higher wages, but they never deliver them. Last month we saw in black and white on page 9 on the budget a cut to real wages over the next four years.

This Liberal government has condemned Australia to our weakest annual growth in wages on record, and it has done so deliberately. Former finance minister Mathias Cormann admitted on TV that low wages are 'a deliberate design feature' of coalition economic architecture—deliberate. And we know why. To the Liberals, Australian workers are just a business cost to be kept as low as possible. They believe this releases more money for business owners to invest. We heard it right there from the member for Chisholm: 'You can have either low unemployment or high wages, but you can't have both.' So she wants to condemn this country to a low-wage future. That's their vision for this country.

We saw in the parliament today the Treasurer extolling the virtues of, apparently, a booming economy under his stewardship, but it's a different story he was telling the Fair Work Commission as the government fought the minimum wage case, saying that they can't afford a decent rise in the minimum wage because of 'uncertain outlook in the economy'. So they're telling the parliament one thing—that the place is going gangbusters—but, in the documents that they provide to officials, there's an uncertain outlook for the future. So which is it? Get your story straight.

On this side of the House, we have been listening to this rubbish for 120 years. It's why we exist as a political party. We were born out of shearers' demands for a livable wage from wealthy pastoralists, and nothing has changed in 120 years. The Liberals are the party of low wages. That's bad for workers and it's bad for the economy. It constrains consumption and it dampens confidence.

This government has handed down a budget predicting low growth, low productivity, low workforce participation and a real wages cut. They've been in power for eight long years, and it shows. They have no plan for the country—only a plan for their own re-election. This government's incompetence is on full display every day: the economy, the vaccine rollout, aged care, Defence contracts, infrastructure rorts and the failure to create an integrity commission. Their self-styled credibility as the supposed better economic managers is in tatters. You wouldn't trust this trillion-dollar debt Treasurer with a tuckshop tin, let alone the national accounts.

Their bungling has dire consequences. As I stand before you, Tasmanians are particularly feeling the pinch. We are facing myriad challenges: housing, tourism and infrastructure, just to name a few. Last month's federal budget provided no path forward for my state. There were stagnant wages and funding cuts for tourism and hospitality. The budget documents reveal real wages declining over the next two years. This is a failure of economic management. How can this government stand by and watch as workers and pensioners struggle with the rising cost of living? We have mothers skipping meals and working extra jobs to make ends meet. We have 3,800 Tasmanians on the emergency housing list. We've had 376 hospitality workers in Tasmania fleeced by their employers to the tune of $580,000 in unpaid wages. Is that the government's vision for the future of Australia? Low wages and wages theft—that's the legacy of the government, and they want more of it. They advocate for more job insecurity, more casualisation and more temporary work visas.

A Labor government under the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, will develop laws to criminalise wage theft. Labor will protect gig workers from being underpaid and end the labour hire rorts that undercut wages and conditions. Australians deserve a government that is on their side, prioritising good, secure, well-paid jobs with fair pay and conditions. These are the values that built this country. These are the values that Labor will protect.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Corangamite for bringing this motion before the parliament. I think it is really important that we talk about the fact that the budget so recently announced included this exposure of a cut to real wages over the coming forward estimates, the four years that the budget covers. You would've missed it if you were waiting for an explanation or even an admission of that by the Treasurer when he did his budget night speech. Unsurprisingly, there wasn't an attempt by the Treasurer to draw significant attention to the fact that the budget showed that, effectively, people across our communities over the next four years are going to actually see a cut to their real wages—that is, the different between wage increases and the cost of living increases.

My colleague the member for Corangamite made the point that the former finance minister had made it clear—whether he meant to do so or not I leave to others to judge—that low wages growth was a structured reaction to the economy by the Liberal government. What we hear consistently is a range of myths, and in this debate I want to take the opportunity to discuss those. I'm sure some of them were covered in the statement made previously by the member opposite. It is interesting that, of the three speakers they put up to defend this, there has been only one person brave enough to actually stand up and contribute to the debate. That might tell us something about how keen they are to defend the baked-in wage cuts in the budget.

An honourable member: That's a good point.

The first thing that's consistently said to the community is that it's all about employment. It's all about employment—of course it is! Of course jobs are critically important, but if you go to any household, whether it's a single household, a couple or a family, the thing that they will tell you is that there is nothing more demoralising than having to patch together a bunch of casual jobs to try to cover the bills that you're faced with. It is not only having a job; having a job that pays a wage that allows you to live with dignity and enables you to provide for your family is just as important to those households. That's what we have seen go backwards. If it were just about having a job, the person with three jobs should be thrilled. In actual fact, they have three jobs because wages are such that they have to have three jobs. That's not a choice.

This argument that, as my colleague just outlined, it's jobs versus good wages is an absolute false dichotomy. You can have jobs growth and you can have economic development, and you are more likely to have those if you have good wages. That's the economic reality. What contributes to wages? Obviously, we have in Australia the Fair Work Commission and enterprise bargaining. These are mechanisms by which people seek a fairer share of the growth and profit that's happening in our economy. This government has taken every opportunity, when people have had submissions for wage rises, to go before the Fair Work Commission and argue against them. As my colleague just said, very often they're out there telling the public and, indeed, reporting to the parliament that times have been great, that they've handled the economy so well and that there's good growth. But then, when workers want a bit of that through a Fair Work Commission determination or enterprise bargaining, suddenly the economy has got real problems and we can't afford to do this.

People need a decent wage for themselves and their families. It makes a difference in our communities. Governments can do more to contribute to that cost of living side of the equation. They can seriously address the cost of child care. They can have serious policies to address the cost of housing. These are things Labor has already put forward so that the family budget can actually provide for working parents. They would have access to affordable child care and could put a roof over their heads. The real shame is this baked-in, ongoing wages cut in a budget that has a trillion dollar debt behind it. There's no more about debt and deficit trucks going around! If it's that big, surely we can back people's wages. (Time expired)

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.