Leon Rebello (McPherson, Liberal National Party) | Hansard source

The contribution of the member opposite, the member for Calwell, continuously referred to this concept of the dignity of work, and the motion itself talks about the dignity of work being a foundational value for the government. These are words, and they sound good, but Australians are sick of just words. They're looking for action and they're looking for a government that is prepared to deliver on the words, because what I'm seeing across my community on the southern Gold Coast is that Australians aren't doing well. They're struggling to get into jobs. They're struggling to maintain work that provides them with an increase in their real wages.

That's because we've got a government that's not focused on the long-term economic picture, or the larger economic picture, which is: How do we support productivity in this country? How do we grow the economy? How do we generate that wealth and that growth? That's ultimately what is going to provide for the long-term opportunities Australians need. We're seeing a government that has presided over the creation of jobs, whereby four out of five new jobs created are reliant on the public purse. That is not something that is sustainable, it's not something that this government should be proud of, and it's not something that fosters that notion of the dignity of work.

The motion also goes to the government's advocacy for an economically sustainable real wage increase. Let's call it for what it is: it's an artificial increase, because there is no systemic change that the government is doing, which is to make life easier for employees. At the same time, they're also making it difficult for employers, and we're seeing the consequences of that on small business owners.

It's all well and good for the government to turn around and say, 'We're supportive of this recent increase to the minimum wage by the Fair Work Commission.' But they're not talking about the other side of that story, which is the fact that the wage increase is being eaten away by this government's own actions, being eaten away by the inflation that this government has presided over. We're seeing inflation at 4.2 per cent, which is well above the target inflation rate, and we're seeing that across the economy in terms of how much Australians are paying for groceries, for electricity bills and for housing. And we're seeing an economy where inflation is now outpacing economic growth.

A minimum wage increase, the likes of which we've seen, is actually not a net increase for Australians, and that is what people are feeling. That's what people are feeling on the ground. These words about the dignity of work and how the government supports that—again, it's Canberra talk. The people have sent us here to this place to come up with policies that are actually going to make their lives better, not just talk about what we'd like in an ideal world.

The reality of this motion is it doesn't deliver anything sustainable for Australian employees or for Australian small-business owners. Even the Fair Work Commission acknowledged that many employees were still worse off in real terms because of inflation outpacing economic growth, or outpacing wage growth. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry policy chief, David Alexander, was recently asked in Canberra about the changes to the minimum wage. He said 'small businesses would bear the brunt of the wage rise.' The consequence of that is not just for small-business owners; it's also for consumers more broadly, because that is being passed on, in many instances, to customers through higher prices. What he actually said is that this is 'the Fair Work Commission embedding that increase in the minimum wage for the year… and we'll therefore put further pressure on inflation'.

So I say to the member for Calwell, who moved this motion, that it's all well and good to come into this place and talk about the words that we think our constituents would like us to speak, but what people do want us to do—the people in the real world out there—is deliver meaningful action on managing this economy. The way that we're going to actually make Australians' lives better is by having a government that's going to take responsibility for its actions, rein in its useless and reckless government expenditure, put downward pressure on inflation and have the guts to make those tough economic decisions that this country is desperate for.

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