Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

After more than seven years of being in power, the government are absolutely out of ideas to take this country forward. All we've seen in this debate from those opposite are some bizarre conspiracy theories. I don't think there's any other way you could describe them. There are some old attacks from Senator Abetz. He does like the old attack. We know that he's always good for that. We've seen him trot them out over the last couple of years.

What we haven't seen from this government is a plan to actually take the country forward. There is no plan to help workers and their families get ahead and no plan to offer those workers and their families a better future, something to look forward to. We know that they offered none of that before the pandemic, and, since the pandemic hit, as Australians have been looking for a vision of a better future, we have seen nothing from this government but attacks on workers and their conditions. It is absolutely a challenge for working people at the moment. We know that they do want to be optimistic about what the future looks like, but the government are incapable of actually having a vision. They didn't have one before the pandemic and they don't have one now to take the country forward.

So stagnant have the conditions been for working Australians since this government was elected that they've given up trying to look for that better deal with the optimism to seek a solution. No—the only thing they've come up with is that tired old attack on workers and their conditions, and they've trotted out trying to appeal to crossbenchers to back them in that mission. The concerning things for Australians is that the government have been in power for so long that they continue to fall back on this trick—this is the only thing they've got. We see it with working conditions and we see it with the role that they're trying to play at the moment in undermining superannuation and denying working Australians dignity in retirement.

Let's consider what Australians are confronting at the moment. According to the OECD—and we know that those opposite have a lot of faith in the OECD at the moment; I'm sure they're all keeping a close eye on what is going on there—since the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government was elected in 2013, real wages in Australia have declined by 0.7 per cent. This is the government's record: real wages have declined by 0.7 per cent. For wage growth in 2019, Australia was third last out of 35 OECD countries. This is the record of a government that has been in power since 2013. This is what they have delivered for Australian workers. And this is before the pandemic hit. After six years in government, these are the conditions that they left for working people in Australia: real wage growth had declined by 0.7 per cent and in 2019 we were third last out of 35 OECD countries.

We know the underutilisation rate is at 15 per cent, well above pre-pandemic levels, and 2.1 million Australians are unemployed or looking for more work. In Queensland, there is 16 per cent underutilisation, 240,000 people are underemployed and 209,000 people are unemployed. When you look around the country, when you look at what's happening in Queensland, there is such a raw deal for workers. We know that the Liberals and Nationals have dropped their pursuit of the better off overall test, but they only did that because it wouldn't pass the parliament. Since then, the Attorney-General, the minister responsible, when he announced he wouldn't pursue it, called those changes 'sensible and proportionate'. This is the minister that is pursuing these changes—or was pursuing these changes—still saying these changes are sensible and proportionate.

What the Australian working people need to know and what their families need to know is that the government will not stop their pursuit of working people and their conditions. We know it becomes an ideological obsession for them, but they actually have no plan that is going to offer those workers a better deal. They have no plan that's going to give those people something to look forward to over the horizon—not tougher conditions when it comes to working people and the way they are dealt with at work. Now, after seven years, it is too late for this government to offer up that vision for the Australian people. It's really important that Labor start to identify that, and we saw elements of that in Queensland last week, where federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese started to outline some of his vision for working people in Australia, and that is important.