House debates

Tuesday, 23 November 2021

Matters of Public Importance

Economy

4:33 pm

Photo of Peta MurphyPeta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In Carrum Downs today, petrol hit 193.9c a litre. The median rent in Frankston has gone up $1,560 in the last year. In the last 12 months, childcare fees have gone up by $390. But real wages fell 0.8 per cent over the past year. Petrol is more expensive, child care is more expensive, rent is more expensive, the price of housing has gone up so much that buying a house is almost inconceivable for so many people in my electorate, and real wages have gone backwards. Yet we have a Morrison government that wants people to believe that they've never had it better.

When you actually talk to the people who we represent, you know that that spin just isn't true. Working families in my electorate are struggling under the weight of increased living costs and flatlining wages. The average Australian is over $700 a year worse off in the last year alone than if wages had grown at the same three per cent rate as inflation. The average family is paying about $900 a year more for their petrol, and childcare fees have gone up by $3,390 a year. You add all that together and it's a significant burden on families, who are particularly struggling as they're coming out of the pandemic.

Research from the McKell Institute shows that the average Australian worker would be earning $254 more each week if wage growth had continued at the rate achieved under the last Labor government. That's $13,000 a year for families already doing it tough. That would be before the 'same job, same pay' policy that the Leader of the Opposition has announced we will take to an election, which would mean that people doing the same job, working side by side, would get paid the same amount. We know that in Australia today there are almost two million people who are either looking for more work or just looking for work. We have one of the highest rates of insecure work in the OECD. Under the Morrison government we've fallen from sixth in the OECD to 21st for wages. According to the OECD, we've fallen from eighth to 17th in the world in economic growth under the Morrison government.

Millions of workers in Australia are in some form of non-standard, insecure working arrangement. There are 2.3 million casuals. There are over a million so-called independent contractors, many of whom are people forced to get an ABN so they can be an Uber driver, a Deliveroo driver, a cleaner, a security guard or someone who traditionally would have been employed to do the job but is now apparently their own small business without any of the protections of employment. There are 400,000 people on fixed-term contracts. Insecure work, the fractured labour market and stagnant wages mean that people in my electorate are struggling to make ends meet. When you add to that the increased pressure of increased childcare fees, increased cost of food and increased cost of petrol, you know that the Morrison government is failing people. It's extraordinary when the Prime Minister says petrol will go up under Labor. He should look at what's happening under him.

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