Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too thank the member for Bendigo for moving this motion. The decision by the Fair Work Commission to raise the minimum wage means an extra $40 a week for full-time workers on minimum wage or low-paid awards. In my home state of Tasmania there are close to 76,000 people who are benefitting from the 5.2 per cent rise. With inflation at a 21-year high and real wages falling, every little bit extra helps. The CEO of the Tasmanian Council of Social Service, Adrienne Picone, made the point that this increase recognises the challenges that Tasmanian workers on low incomes are facing with high inflation. I'll come to the issue of high inflation a little bit later.

There was a 5.8 per cent increase in the cost of living over the past year. That's a massive increase in Tasmania, as you, Deputy Speaker Wilkie, and the member for Braddon well know. The cost of living in our state is one of the biggest issues facing our constituents. This rings true in the stories that I and, no doubt, you, Deputy Speaker, and the member for Braddon hear from our constituents across Tasmania—that the financial pressures Tasmanians are under are immense. I hear stories of people having to put groceries back at the checkout. They're putting off visits to the GP. They're cancelling the family day out because it's too expensive to fill the car up with petrol.

Affording the essentials has become increasingly more difficult for Tassie families recently, with the cost of food, housing, health, transport and education all rising. People often talk about Tasmania being a cheaper place to live due to property prices. That's not the case anymore, Deputy Speaker Wilkie, as you would well know, with Hobart being one of the country's fastest rising property price indicators—it is no longer a cheap place to live. We suffer wages in Tasmania that are lower than the Australian average, yet it's more expensive than ever to have a mortgage and pay the rent.

I take this opportunity to echo the calls made over the weekend by Australian Tasmanian Labor leader, Rebecca White, for the Tasmanian government to start getting the basics right when addressing the cost of living. We all have a role to play. We too often hear the Tasmanian state government calling on the federal government to do all the heavy lifting. The state government needs to do its fair share. The skyrocketing cost of living is the biggest issue facing Tasmanians today, perhaps with the exception of health across regional Australia. As Dr Haines, the member for Indi, would know, regional Australia is facing massive issues in terms of health access.

In the face of such pressures, I'm proud to be part of a federal government that fought for the lowest paid workers to get the pay rise they deserve. The very first decision of the Albanese cabinet was to agree on a submission to the Fair Work Commission recommending that Australians get a decent minimum wage increase. It was the very first decision. That set the marker for what this government believes is an important issue going forward—wage justice for Australian workers. The Albanese Labor government does not want to see low-paid workers go backwards. Under the former government, wages were deliberately kept low, and Australian workers were worse off for it.

It needs to be said time and again that wages were deliberately kept low by the former government. It was a deliberate piece of their economic architecture. It wasn't happenstance; it wasn't a coincidence. The former government deliberately wanted to keep wages low because it saw that as a recipe for economic success. Now workers and their families are paying the price after a decade of wage stagnation. That era is over for cleaners, carers, shop assistants and the other heroes of the pandemic who put themselves on the line to keep Australia functioning over the last two and a half years. Workers know they now have a government that will show up and fight for them. Workers have a government that will fight to address issues like weak wage growth, flatlining productivity, the gender pay gap, skills shortage and barriers to work. One example is last week's two-day Jobs and Skills Summit. There were great ideas. More than a hundred Australians came together—building bridges—to try to find a common way forward to get the country out of the mess that we find ourselves in after 10 years of inaction. We have really great hopes for the future out of that.

Finally, I want to come to the issue of inflation. There has been no wage growth over the past few years. Workers and wages have not caused the inflation issue. We have record profits in this country. We have a demand and supply issue. I call on corporate Australia to do its fair share of the heavy lifting, look at the profits it's taking home for shareholders, and bring some of those prices down, which are far in excess of their costs. (Time expired)

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