Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Accountability) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Families and Social Services (Senator Ruston), the Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business (Senator Cash) and the Minister representing the Minister for Industrial Relations (Senator Payne).

This is not necessarily in order of their cruelness or ineptitude or their dismissive attitude towards the struggles of Australian workers. Why do I say that? Let me go to the Smith Family, a very well-known charitable foundation that looks after people who have disadvantaged circumstances. On their website, they detail individual cases. They have some about some of the children in Australia and the disadvantage in which they're living. The case I'm going to tell you of is about Alice.

From the moment they are born, there's an increased risk of disadvantaged children falling through the cracks. They often miss out on early learning experiences and opportunities that other children receive. When they start school, they're already behind. One in three children from Australia's most disadvantaged communities do not meet one or more key developmental milestones when they start school. Not all children get an equal start in life. Alice is just one of the one in six Australian children who are living in disadvantage today. Some families have experienced many generations of disadvantage. For others, there might be a recent change in health, employment or family relationship which has affected them so badly they are no longer able to meet the daily costs of living. With limited financial resources, the day-to-day life of a family changes significantly.

If the parents are working, they are more likely to be working irregular hours in insecure work. We know that in the last two terms of this government and in the beginning of this, its third term, they are more likely to be working irregular hours due to insecure work or travelling long distances for work. This puts pressure on other family members, including children, to keep the household running. Let's think about that. A primary-school-age child, like Alice, is having to help keep a household running. Teenagers may have to work to supplement the family income, leaving them with little or no time to study and with no-one there to help them if they're struggling with school work. Why? Again, their parents are working long, irregular hours.

With so much focus on just getting by, many of these kids don't have something as simple as a school bag, a complete uniform or the school books they need to make the most of their education. School excursions and activities become an impossible luxury. This singles them out amongst their peers, and they also have to deal with that—the fact that other children that they're at school with know that they can't go on the school excursion. They're often teased or left out by other students because they don't fit in.

We now have the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, released today, showing that household medium income under this six-year government has flatlined. Yet, instead of looking at ways to increase the real wages of working Australians this government is more comfortable going back to their pet loves of attacking unions and low-paid workers. The HILDA report noted that since 2012 there has been basically no growth, and this comes after a preceding period which saw very large increases in household incomes. There has been basically no growth in household income. Day after day, in every appearance, we see this government engage. They tie themselves in knots trying to defend the systematic rorting of workers' incomes and entitlements.

We've seen in the last few years under this government an increase in wage theft. We've seen it with Domino's Pizza, Michael Hill jewellers, 7-Eleven, Lush cosmetics group, Super Retail Group and, of course, more recently and infamously, George Calombaris. It finally took this government $7.8 million in unpaid workers' wages to actually consider that, yes, a $200,000 penalty was a bit light on. But let's remember also that—and I'll finish with this—Scott Morrison declared, when he was Treasurer, that record low-wage growth is the biggest challenge facing the Australian economy. (Time expired)