Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister of Employment and Workplace Relations. In its first 12 months in office how has the Albanese Labor government reversed previous policies, to get wages moving and to get more Australians into jobs?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Dunkley for the question, because the policy change has been deliberate. What was keeping people out of secure jobs and what was keeping people with flatlining wages for nearly a decade was also deliberate. It was a deliberate design feature of the previous decade in office.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Barker will cease interjecting.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But we have had in the first 12 months a deliberate design feature of getting jobs moving. We have had getting jobs moving as a deliberate design feature of this government, getting wages moving as a deliberate design feature of this government and closing the gender pay gap as a deliberate design feature of this government. In the first 12 months, as the Treasurer has already said, more Australians are employed—330,000. It has been the best first 12 months of any Australian government. But that figure of 330,000 is not clouded by all those jobs being insecure. More than 280,000 of those jobs are full-time. There has been stronger employment growth than in any of the major advanced economies.

But it's not just jobs that have been growing as a deliberate design feature. Wages have been moving as well. Average full-time annual earnings are a thousand dollars a year higher, going into people's bank accounts, than they would have been if the growth levels of flatlining wages had remained as they were under the previous government. It is the fastest annual growth in guess how long—a decade. That's what happens when you stop having low wages as a design feature and when getting wages moving becomes a deliberate design feature of the government.

But some of the best outcomes that we're seeing in both wages and employment are the statistics that have come out recently for women workers in Australia. We now have the highest number of women in recorded history in full-time work. The female unemployment rate, at 3.3 per cent, is the lowest it has been in 50 years. Why would it be that we're getting better female employment statistics coming through? Could it be connected to the fact that we now have a government that's implementing all 55 recommendations of the Respect@Work report? Could it be that gender equality is now an objective of the Fair Work Act? Could it be because we now have a government that turns up to the Fair Work Commission and argues for pay rises for people on low wages, including for feminised industries like aged care?

The changes that have been happening have been deliberate. When people had insecure work, when people were on sluggish wage growth, it was because of a deliberate decision from those opposite, and getting wages moving, closing the gender pay gap and getting people into secure jobs is a deliberate decision of the Albanese government. (Time expired)