Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to congratulate the South Australian submarine workers at the ASC and their representatives at the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. This success that they've seen is the culmination of a very, very long battle to see pay parity between the South Australian workers and the Western Australian workers. We've seen that come to fruition. South Australian workers will now see an average increase of 18.5 per cent; that is for the trades and the operator support workers at the maintenance and sustainment facility. It is a great outcome. We in the Albanese government believe that if you're doing the same job you should receive the same pay; we see that as a fundamental tenet of fairness. It is really great to see that outcome.

I've spent time with the AMWU while they've been working through this campaign. I've met with workers from the facility and heard their stories. In some instances they were the ones shipped over to WA to train those other workers who were getting paid more than them because that was allowed in our system in this country under the coalition government. Under us, that's not the case. We're delighted to see same job, same pay come to fruition and to start to see this fairness come across our industrial relations system. Instead of seeing what we have seen for 10 years, which is wage stagnation, we're starting to see some real good green shoots across our economy. We've prioritised closing those labour loopholes and ensuring better working conditions for Australian workers.

As part of our historic 'closing loopholes' legislation, labour hire workers can now apply to receive the full rate of pay as comparable to the direct employees they work alongside, shoulder to shoulder, every day, undertaking the same jobs—