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

Our government is acting to boost wages and close the gender pay gap to help workers with cost-of-living pressures, with no thanks at all to the opposition. Our values have not changed. The Albanese government will always stand up for workers. Let's pause for a minute and remember the coalition's legacy when it comes to wages, which is the subject of this debate.

While in power, the coalition refused to make a submission to the aged-care work value case. Senator Cash, as the then minister, and all of her colleagues have never met workers they thought had any value whatsoever, let alone in the aged-care sector. The former government refused to argue that the wages of low-paid workers shouldn't even go backwards, in their annual wage review submission. This was a major issue heading into the last election. We repeatedly called on the government of the day to make a submission to the annual wage review that at least said that workers' wages shouldn't go backwards, but they wouldn't even do that. As we all remember, one of the key policies of the former government was low wage growth; it was a deliberate design feature of their economic architecture.

For the coalition, there never seems to be a good time for a wage increase for workers. Under the coalition, Australian workers were told: 'Wait for low unemployment and then you'll get a pay rise. Wait for productivity increases and then you'll get a pay rise.' Of course, it never happened. We had falling unemployment—no pay rises, no real wage growth. We had productivity increases—no real wage growth. Under the coalition's watch, workers saw the slowest sustained pace of wages growth in Australia's postwar history, averaging just 2.1 per cent in nominal wages growth over its almost 10 years in government. The coalition voted no on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022. They opposed it before they'd even read it. The coalition said no before they'd even read a bill that was about delivering secure jobs and better pay to Australian workers. Do you know why they were willing to do so before they'd even read the bill? It was because they were scared off by the name of the bill—'secure jobs, better pay'. There is nothing more anathema to the coalition parties of this country than those two concepts. As soon as they'd read the words, the coalition ran a mile and said they wouldn't support the bill.

If we look back at the various statements made by members of the coalition, we can see where they stand on wages and the annual wage review. Those opposite have a track record of saying no to anything that will push up workers' wages. As I say, the former finance minister and former leader of the government of the day in the Senate, Mathias Cormann, described low wage growth as 'a deliberate design feature of our economic architecture'. When the now Prime Minister, Mr Albanese, declared his support for an increase to the minimum wage, Mr Morrison, the then Prime Minister, labelled Mr Albanese 'reckless and dangerous'. I think it's all been recorded that that was a pretty decisive moment in the election campaign, when Australians saw what the coalition were about and they saw that there was only one party that was serious about delivering the wage rises that Australian workers deserve.

In Mr Angus Taylor's statements in September last year on multi-employer bargaining, he opposed it because:

It pushes up wages and pushes up prices … This is a bad place to go … what we saw coming out of that job summit was fuel on the inflationary fire.

Of course it's not true to say there has to be a connection between increasing wages and inflation. In fact, I see that the most recent figures show that inflation is beginning to make to come down a little bit, which is a good thing. But yet again we see opposition from the coalition to the concept of wage rises. Of course, their leader, Mr Dutton, said in response to the Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill that he was 'deeply concerned' that this bill was 'going to result in higher wages'. That was their objection to the Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill—that it might, after 10 years of workers being denied real wage growth, do something about wage growth.

We make no apologies, as a Labor government, for standing up for the interests of workers and standing up for their need to get a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. That's why our government is acting to get wages moving and close the gender pay gap. In the first six months the Albanese government delivered the strongest jobs growth for any new Australian government on record. Gender equality and women's economic security is at the heart of the government's agenda. We amended the Fair Work Act to put gender equality at the centre of the Fair Work Commission's decision-making. We have asked the Fair Work Commission to ensure that it considers the impact of its annual wage decision on these objectives.

Unlike the opposition, who had a decade to get wages moving while in government, the Labor government under Prime Minister Albanese has not wasted a day in standing up for workers. In our first week in government, we made a submission to the Annual Wage Review to argue that low-paid workers should not go backwards. We've used existing structures to back workers and their wages—structures that were already in place under the former government but were never used by them to this effect. We made a submission to the Annual Wage Review, which, of course, delivered a 5.2 per cent pay rise for the low-paid last year. This year we will again argue that low-paid workers should not go backwards. Our government's values have not changed. We will always stand up for the needs of working people in this country. As I've already said, with the aged-care case, we made a submission arguing that aged-care workers are undervalued on gender grounds. As a result of that and the decisions that followed, on 1 July 250,000 aged-care workers will get a pay rise of 15 per cent, meaning $3.40 more per hour for the lowest-paid direct care workers. These are good things for workers and these are good things for the economy, because people who have more money in their pocket can actually spend more and pay the bills that they face every day and every week.

We've changed the law in a range of other ways to back workers and their wages: stronger gender pay equity laws, better access to flexible working arrangements, gender equality and job security as objects of the Fair Work Act, and improving our bargaining system for workers and employers. These laws are already working. The most recent Fair Work Commission data shows that there were 476 workplace agreements lodged in December 2022, 50 per cent more than in July 2022. There are employers who are now back at the bargaining table who haven't bargained in years. That's delivering certainty for employers and better pay for workers.

We're now moving on to changing the law to close a range of loopholes that were left by the former government. We're now consulting on our election commitment to deliver same job same pay, particularly for labour hire workers; to address the situation faced by employee-like workers; and to deliver fair minimum standards for gig economy workers. We're also tackling wage theft. We are acting to close loopholes, we're boosting wages, we're closing the gender pay gap and we're easing cost-of-living pressures, and to each one of these things the opposition just says no.