Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the Turnbull government's Treasury Laws Amendment (Personal Income Tax Plan) Bill 2018 in its current form. I do so for the 39,000 workers on the north-west coast of Tasmania, the west coast of Tasmania and King Island, who will be better off under Labor's bigger, better, fairer income tax plan. I do so for my late mother, a woman who chose to be an aged-care worker, a woman who gave her all for the people that she cared for, a union woman who organised her colleagues to get a better deal around our family's kitchen table decades ago. I do so for the more than 360,000 aged-care workers across the country who this Prime Minister attacked just hours ago in the other place.

I say firmly to Prime Minister Turnbull, for saying that a 60-year-old aged-care worker in Burnie should aspire to get a better job, it is clear that his definition of 'better' demonstrates how little he values our aged-care workers, it is clear how little the Prime Minister values the women workers who fill 87 per cent of Australia's aged-care workforce and it's clear how little the Prime Minister cares about people in our aged-care homes and that he sees caring for them as something that people should not aspire to do. This type of patronising comment from the Prime Minister hurts. It hurts deep in your guts and deep in your heart. I think, worst of all, it was totally unnecessary.

The Prime Minister was asked a simple question today about who government should prioritise for income tax cuts. Should a 60-year-old aged-care worker from Burnie aspire to be an investment banker so that they can get a bigger tax cut? The Prime Minister responded:

The 60-year-old aged-care worker in Burnie is entitled to aspire to get a better job, is entitled to get a promotion, and earn more.

This is a 60-year-old worker who is highly trained as an aged-care worker. Why would we want them to retrain and get a different job? Why would we, as a society, not want them to be earning a good income from the job that they actually love, staying in the workforce, training their younger colleagues and continuing to provide care and support to their residents on a daily basis—residents who are our mums, dads, grandparents, aunties, uncles and cherished friends? Why do we not prioritise giving them a little bit more in take-home pay so that they can continue to provide an invaluable community service? That is what this debate is about tonight: work at its most basic principle.

I believe you'll never get a better comparison of Labor versus Liberal than on this issue where the Prime Minister defines 'better' as something other than work. Labor values all workers. Where the Prime Minister thinks people should just get a promotion, Labor values all workers. Where the Prime Minister promotes aspiration as fundamental, Labor promotes and values all workers.

One worker who I want to highlight tonight is Jeanette Parsons from Wynyard, a beautiful seaside town that is just a 10-minute drive west of Burnie. Jeanette is a member of the Health and Community Services Union Tasmanian branch. She spoke at the Change The Rules launch in Davenport earlier this month, which I attended with a number of my Labor colleagues. Jeanette and her colleagues are enduring a four-year enterprise bargaining agreement negotiation with their employer Wynyard Care Centre. The Wynyard Care Centre is owned by Synovum Care who promote on their website:

A new direction in aged care … 'as normal life as possible'.

The aged-care workers at Wynyard Care Centre have been fighting for four years just for a conversation on their EBA. The aged-care workers at Wynyard Care Centre don't need a new direction in aged care; they need their employer to sit down and bargain in good faith. Jeanette spoke at the Change the Rules campaign launch in Devonport. She told the room:

It has been a very long, tough struggle with no advantages in that time. We need that to change. We need to be able to go into an EBA, have a conversation, a negotiation, and work it out fairly and sign off on it and get on with our everyday work.

I hope someone from Synovum was listening that day and, if not, that they sit up and listen after today. These aged-care workers in Wynyard, just like the other 360,000 workers across the country, just want a fair EBA signed off so that they can get on with their everyday work, so that they can get on with caring for their residents. They don't have to aspire to a better job, as our Prime Minister suggested, just to get a fair deal at work and a decent tax cut from the government, and neither do millions of other Australians working in retail and hospitality, in health, education and community services, in our ships and on our docks, in construction and manufacturing, or in forestry, mining or agriculture. I congratulate the Australian trade union movement for its Change The Rules campaign. I was pleased to join thousands of unionists out in front of Parliament House today to hear of the severe issues plaguing our workplaces right across the country.

This tax debate clearly fits into exactly the same narrative. It's about choices. The people of Burnie and Wynyard and across the electorate of Braddon, down the west coast, over on King Island, up in Circular Head and in Devonport, Ulverstone and Latrobe will make a choice on 28 July. On tax, the choice is between a Shorten Labor government, which will deliver permanent tax relief to 39,000 people in Braddon, and Prime Minister Turnbull's out-of-touch tax cuts, where the biggest benefits will go to his own electorate of Wentworth. Braddon sits 147th in the national pecking order and is the fourth-smallest beneficiary in the whole country.

Justine Keay and Bill Shorten will almost double the Turnbull government's tax relief for 39,000 workers on the north-west and west coasts of Tasmania and over on King Island. This will see everyone earning less than $125,000 up to $928 a year better off over the next four years. In comparison, Brett Whiteley and Prime Minister Turnbull want someone on $200,000 to pay the same tax rate as someone on $40,000. This legislation, with our amendments, will deliver tax relief to 10 million Australians on 1 July this year. But Brett Whiteley and Prime Minister Turnbull are trying to hold Australian workers to ransom while he defends a tax cut for millionaires—a tax cut that doesn't take effect for six years, a tax cut that will benefit only four per cent of income earners in Tasmania, a tax cut that is deeply unfair and unjust.

Tax cuts for working Tasmanians should not be held hostage to tax cuts for bankers in six years. Brett Whiteley and Prime Minister Turnbull need to stop standing in the way of tax cuts for teachers and tradies, for shop assistants and carers. We all know that former banker Brett Whiteley voted six times against a banking royal commission and that he is totally locked in behind Prime Minister Turnbull's $17 billion taxpayer funded handout to the big banks. People in Braddon know what Brett Whiteley stands for. They booted him out of office twice. I'm confident that when the people of Braddon compare the policies and values of Justine Keay and Labor with those of Brett Whiteley and the Liberals, he will be defeated again.

I will finish where I began: paying tribute to the 360,000 aged-care workers in this country, 87 per cent of whom are working women. I say this to the women and men who work in aged care: I value your work. I value your labour. I value the real contribution that you make to the lives of our precious aged-care residents. Labor will give you a bigger, better tax cut. Labor will work with you and your unions to improve our aged-care sector. And Labor will never ever devalue your hard work.