Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think most parents would hope that their child will have at least as good a life as theirs and hopefully a better life than theirs, and that is pretty much what's happened, generation after generation, in Australia. While we are far from an equal nation, the statistics do show that parents have been proud to see their children better educated, better remunerated, better travelled, living longer—having a better standard of living.

But something has changed. I now see people my age expressing real concerns about how their children will fare independently in the world—how this next generation, and the one after it, is going to go. It seems to me now that we would probably settle for our kids having the same standard of living as ours. We have lost that expectation that they should have a better standard of living. That is a real change in psyche for Australia.

When you unpack it, it's because of the cost of going about your daily life, the things like going to a GP, paying your rent or saving for a home, paying for your electricity, keeping your phone connected or your internet on, covering the childcare costs, putting kids through school, keeping your car on the road or paying for your public transport. All those basic costs are eating up so much of your income that, for many people, there really doesn't seem to be very much left over. Young people, working people—we're talking working people here—young families, families with teenagers, older people, self-funded retirees and pensioners all tell me that it is harder to keep your head above water.

Now, anecdotal evidence is one thing. The conversations we have back in our electorates are one thing. But I do like to know that perceptions are backed by fact and data. So I wasn't actually surprised to see the reports this week that new research shows that it is costing more for us to stay where we are and that people's wages are not growing at the same pace, so the gap is widening. In other words, our standard of living is falling.

The Australian National University research points to the fact that we have the weakest wage growth on record. You can't bank on getting an annual pay rise that will keep pace with the increased cost of stuff that you have to pay for. The take-home pay of the average Australian who works for a private business grew by just 1.4 per cent over the year to May 2017. That's less than inflation, which means that you are going backwards when it comes to paying the bills. The slow wage growth isn't because business isn't doing well. Record profits in recent years simply haven't come through to workers in wage rises. What's happened to them? They've gone to share buybacks, higher executive pay and bonuses for executives. They haven't—funnily enough—trickled down.

The cuts to weekend penalty rates come on top of this. For people who work on a Sunday and public holidays to provide for their families, this government is certainly not helping them. If you're on the minimum wage, which 3.2 million people are in their awards, it is actually no longer a wage you can live on.

If you speak to people about the day-to-day grind you have to wonder why anyone would think that taxing people on the middle and lowest incomes more would be a good thing. Why would you tax those people more? Yet that is what this government is doing—call it a tax or call it a levy. If you're a multinational, this government wants to give you a big tax cut. If you're a millionaire—and they don't seem to be doing too badly—this year you get a tax cut of $16,400, while someone earning $60,000 gets an extra tax bill of $300.

When there is this sort of gap between how much you earn and how much you spend just to cover the basics, I think the real damage is done in the area of health. In the Blue Mountains my upper-mountains constituents tell me that it is almost impossible to find a bulk-billing GP, unless you're a pensioner or have a health care card or a child. GPs have been absorbing the Liberals' ongoing Medicare freeze for five years under this government and they can't do it any longer. The rent's gone up and their staff's wages have gone up. So health is where people are being hit. The cost of living is not just costing people their pockets; it is costing them their health.

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