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

Thank you, Senator Walsh. As I've said before, she, like many in this chamber, has dedicated her life to working for working people, unlike those that we see in the opposition who have dedicated their careers to keeping wages low. The Albanese government's No. 1 priority is addressing inflation and cost-of-living pressures.

We know a lot of people are doing it tough in Australia right now, and that's why we're doing as much as we possibly can to assist. It's why we're delivering targeted relief while not adding to inflation. That includes delivering electricity bill relief, which was opposed by the opposition; making medicines cheaper, which was opposed by the opposition; delivering cheaper child care, which was opposed by the opposition; and, importantly, ensuring wages rise at the fastest rate in a decade, including for minimum-wage and aged-care workers.

Unlike those opposite, the Albanese Labor government is also committed to helping Australians deal with cost-of-living pressures through higher wages. As I've said, we know that a lot of people are doing it tough right now, and ensuring that people have higher wages is an important part of making sure that they can deal with cost-of-living pressures.

The facts don't suit the opposition, because the facts show that wages are moving again under the Albanese Labor government. We've had two consecutive quarters of real wage growth. The latest wage growth data is at four per cent. Under those opposite, it averaged just 2.1 per cent. Under the opposition there was half the wage growth that we are now seeing under the Albanese Labor government. That's because of things like aged-care workers receiving an historic 15 per cent wage rise from the Fair Work Commission, supported by the Albanese government. We've seen increases to award wages. Under the opposition, it was 4.6 per cent in 2022. Under Labor, it was 5.75 per cent in 2023. We've seen the gender pay gap reduced to the lowest it has ever been an Australian history. Meanwhile, we still see unemployment remain at an historic low of 3.7 per cent.

We know people are doing it tough. We need to do more, but we're delivering higher wages again.