Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. As I say, there is nothing that gets the coalition going more than the prospect of keeping wages low. That's what they did for the 10 years they were in government, and that's what they're determined to do—even though they lost the last election, even when our government got a mandate to get wages moving again. This mob over here are so determined to hold workers back from getting a pay rise that they will continually oppose it. They will come up with scare campaign after scare campaign, anything at all, to keep wages low. And why? Because it was a deliberate feature of their economic policy, and they're determined to pursue that in opposition just as they did it for 10 years in government.

Do you know what will actually make our economy stronger? It is higher wages and higher productivity. Do you know how we're going to do that? By delivering these industrial relations reforms that the people of Australia voted for and this mob still haven't woken up to, and they're pursuing the old fights and the old conflict to hold wages low.