Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Money matters, wages matter, earning more matters and keeping more of what you earn matters. That's what matters in my electorate of Swan, and that's what matters to the Albanese Labor government. Cost-of-living pressures impact people on the lowest incomes, like the young student from my electorate who's been using his savings to get through uni and been borrowing money from his mother, or the young woman who contacted me who's been struggling with cost-of-living pressures, or the young man that I know who's been working in hospitality, struggling to make ends meet.

We want to back wage growth, not wage cuts, especially for our lowest-paid workers. That's why we've asked the Fair Work Commission to raise the minimum wage in line with inflation. We're backing workers and we're backing worker wages.

Our economic plan put forward by this government is working, and the Treasurer, with his financial acumen and strategic vision, is delivering on our economic future for our nation. Unemployment is down, inflation is down, jobs are up and wages are up. And there are tax cuts for every taxpayer, with bigger tax cuts for 77,000 people in Swan and bigger tax cuts for 600,000 women in WA—another act towards closing the gender pay gap.