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

How about that? That sounds like secure jobs to me, Senator Gallagher. And employment has actually increased by 55,000, exceeding all market expectations, and female employment has increased by 37½ thousand. So, well done to the Minister for Women, Senator Gallagher, and all others involved in delivering that.

The Albanese government does know that a lot of people are doing it tough right now, and that's why we're doing everything we can to get wages moving: secure jobs, better pay. We were for both; you were for neither. It's why we supported an increase to the minimum wage not once but twice. It's why we supported decent pay for aged-care workers. And who can forget Senator Colbeck and others muddling their way through why they couldn't support a pay rise for aged-care workers? We remember that. And do you know who else remembers it? The aged-care workers. They remember the coalition not supporting a pay rise for some of the hardest-working people in our community.

It's also why we passed our secure jobs, better pay legislation—that bit of legislation that, from the coalition's point of view, was doomed as soon as we came up with that name for the bill: secure jobs, better pay, two things the coalition is absolutely allergic to. We know that our legislation is getting wages moving again and improving conditions. We do know that Australians are doing it tough. We know we're going to have to keep working hard on this. But bypassing that legislation we're getting wages moving again and creating more jobs, which is exactly what we said we would do.