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

Five seconds into the answer, and they're already whingeing about trying to help Australians with cost-of-living pressures. That tells you all you need to know about the opposition.

Of course, we know that under the Albanese government every Australian taxpayer is getting a tax cut. Every Australian household is getting $300 in energy bill relief. Under Labor, there are more people in work. There are more women in work. More people are in full-time work, and, importantly, we're getting wages moving again.

Opposition senators interjecting—

I know you don't like wages moving again; thank you for reminding everyone!

We're also supporting measures to improve conditions at work. We're reducing the amount of unpaid work and burnout that workers are experiencing, through our right to disconnect, and we're ensuring a pathway to permanency for casual staff. We're seeing the highest number of employees covered by newly approved enterprise agreements in over a decade, leading to bigger pay rises and more productivity for employers. And we've backed and funded a pay rise for early educators and aged-care workers. That's because Labor governments fight for better wages and conditions. We fight for more secure jobs, and we fight for safer workplaces.

One of the ways we've done that is by closing the loopholes that businesses have been exploiting at the cost of workers. As Senator Sheldon knows—I was with him, and Senator Sterle, in Sydney only a couple of weeks ago, where members of the Transport Workers Union filed an application to close some of the loopholes they've been experiencing. That means that food delivery workers, gig workers, couriers and truckies now have better conditions available to them because of our closing-loopholes legislation. We're seeing flight attendants, cabin crew and mine workers get pay rises from the Albanese government's same job, same pay legislation. We're getting wages moving again. (Time expired)