Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Spence for this excellent motion. I want to acknowledge his strong commitment to working people not just in this place but in his previous career as a Transport Workers' Union official.

When we came to power in May 2022, we set about lifting people's wages. Since we came to office, the minimum wage has already increased by $143 a week, and the median wage has increased by $206 per week. We set about helping three million workers across the country. That's cleaners, retail workers and early-childhood educators. After the election, we advocated to the Fair Work Commission that we would do it. We did this during the election, but we continue to support decisions made. We made a submission just after the election to the Fair Work Commission recommending that the Fair Work Commission award an economically sustainable real wage increase to Australian award workers. We said we were going to do this, and we did it after the election.

Our plan that we took to the election was all about ensuring Australians earn more. We want to make sure they can earn more and, through our tax cuts, keep more. Our economic strategy was about getting wages moving. Don't forget, Mathias Cormann, the then finance minister in the previous government, belled the cat when he said that a deliberate design feature of their economic policy and industrial relations policy was to keep wages low. Our strategy was to get wages moving again, get on top of inflation, maintain the gains in the labour market and build a more productive economy. That was our commitment.

From 1 July this year about three million Australian workers, minimum wage and award wage workers across the country, received a 3.5 per cent pay increase. That's many workers in my electorate. This followed our submission to the Fair Work Commission. It is good for workers, is good for the economy and will help with cost-of-living relief. It recognises the substantial progress Australians have made together in the economy. But we know people are still under pressure and ongoing cost-of-living relief is critical.

On top of this, the new data shows that a record high number of employees are now covered by federal enterprise bargaining agreements, or EBAs, which produce real wage increases for Australian workers—not those stupid AWAs that John Howard brought in with the Work Choices stuff, which caused so much of a problem and the suppression of wages under the previous coalition government. Workers covered by EBAs have seen their wages increase by 3.8 per cent, outpacing inflation and economy-wide wage increases. Boosting wages, cutting taxes for taxpayers and creating jobs are a central part of our effort to help Australians with the cost of living. That's absolutely vital. We're combining increasing wages with our tax cuts, cheaper medicines, cuts to student debt and energy bill relief. We're making a difference in easing the cost of living.

On 1 July this year we celebrated another milestone, which the member for Spence talked about: the superannuation guarantee finally getting to 12 per cent, up from 11.5 per cent. Labor is the party of superannuation. It took Labor governments to get there: prime ministers Hawke and Keating introduced the superannuation scheme; Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan, her Treasurer, legislated the guarantee, and now our government is delivering it. This increase in the superannuation guarantee under our government means a worker early in their career who is earning about $72,000 a year will have an extra $91,000 in retirement, and a worker at 30 years of age earning the average full-time income—about $103,000—will have an extra $98,000 in retirement. This is very significant. Imagine a young person looking at that. That's what we are doing.

This could have happened six years ago, but, as I said in the local government debate a few minutes ago, those opposite blocked the increases. In my time in politics I can't think of a time when the Liberal and National parties have actually supported an increase in the superannuation guarantee—not one. We are delivering more money in retirement, giving people dignity in retirement and more security for their future, and those opposite can't have the grace and humility to accept it.

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