Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

The Albanese government was elected nearly three years ago on a platform to get wages moving again, and we are delivering. It's great news that the independent interim review into our secure jobs, better pay laws that was released yesterday has found that these laws are already starting to deliver for Australians. I thank Emeritus Professor Mark Bray and Professor Alison Preston for their very thorough interim report, which finds that since our secure jobs, better pay laws were passed there has been a 'remarkable' increase in workers covered by collective agreements, delivering better pay, and that wages and other indicators of workers' economic circumstances are starting 'to improve'. What they found is that, since our laws were passed, workers' wages are starting to improve. In fact, full-time workers in Australia are now earning, in median terms, an extra $213 a week compared with 3½ years ago; real wages have gone up by four quarters in a row; the gender pay gap is at a historic low; and the unemployment rate remains historically low—and this is all happening while we continue to bring inflation down. We know that things remain tough for many Australians, and the Albanese Labor government will continue working hard to take pressure off Australian families. But this is encouraging news, and it shows that Labor's workplace laws are relieving some of that pressure.

Of course, it wasn't always this way, because you might remember that the coalition deliberately kept Australians' wages low for a decade when they were in government. It was a deliberate design feature of their economic plan. Now I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that the review also found that 'the economic situation of Australian workers declined' from 2012 to 2022. Now I wonder who was in government over that period of time. Oh, that's right: it was you lot. It was the coalition who were in power— (Time expired)