Anne Urquhart (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

Before the 2022 federal election, Labor made a clear commitment. We would stand up for Australia's lowest paid workers. We said we would go to the Fair Work Commission and argue for an immediate wage increase because people who work hard should not be left behind. For nearly a decade under the former Liberal and National government, low wages were not an accident. They were a deliberate design feature of economic policy. Working Australians were told to wait, accept less and carry rising costs without receiving a fair share of the prosperity they helped create.

Labor has a different view. Work should provide security, dignity and opportunity. A strong economy is measured not only by profit but by whether working people can pay the rent, fill the fridge, put petrol in the car and buy school shoes. That's why this Labor government has advocated for wage increases in every wage review since coming to office. This year, the government supported sustainable real wage increases for the lowest paid workers. The Fair Work Commission has now increased the national minimum wage by six per cent and minimum award wages by 4.75 per cent. These adjustments take effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July this year. Around 2.7 million award-reliant workers will receive a pay rise. For them, this is practical relief—the difference between falling behind and keeping up.

Many low-paid workers are young, women or casual workers. Many work in jobs that keep Australia going—retail, hospitality, cleaning, aged care, disability support and early childhood education. They deserve more than thanks. They deserve fair pay. This also matters because award-reliant workers are disproportionately women, and their work has too often been undervalued and underpaid. Labor has backed wage rises in aged care, is supporting historic pay increases in early childhood education and care, and continues to support fair outcomes in sectors that have contributed to the gender pay gap.

Under Labor, Australia's national gender pay gap has fallen to an historic low of 11.5 per cent, down from 14.1 per cent in May 2022. That progress happened because Labor acted, backing minimum wage increases, banning pay secrecy clauses, modernising bargaining, improving transparency and lifting wages in feminised industries. That's what Labor governments do. We see fair wages as the foundation of a decent society. We do not simply praise essential workers. We fight to pay them properly.

Our commitment to fair work and fair pay is not new. It is part of Labor's legacy of nation building. After the Second World War, the Curtin Labor government helped lay the foundations for full employment through the Commonwealth Employment Service, launched in 1946. Its purpose was simple but powerful: to connect people with work, respond to labour shortages and support Australians through changing economic conditions. The CES recognised that employment policy is not just about statistics but about people, families and communities.

That principle still matters today. Under this government, Australia has recorded the lowest average unemployment rate of any government in more than 50 years, and more than 1.2 million jobs have been created. That is a record of which we can be proud. But low unemployment does not mean that every Australian can easily access work. Too many people are missing out because the employment services system that replaced the CES in 1998 is no longer working for everyone who needs support to find and keep work. The Commonwealth spends around $2 billion each year on employment services, supporting more than one million Australians. But the current system is ill equipped for diverse needs and too often relies on a one-size-fits-all model.

That's why we're rebuilding that system around people, not punishment, and around capability, not compliance for its own sake. We have announced fundamental reforms—the biggest change to employment services in 30 years. It means the right support at the right time for those people who need it, for those more than one million people out there. Labor's task is twofold: to make sure that work pays and to make sure more Australians can share in the dignity and security that work provides. The dignity of work is not just a slogan for Labor governments. It is a principle. It is a promise. And it's a promise that we are delivering. The delivery of that promise is around modernising and changing the employment services that are out there today to become more receptive to those who are looking for work.

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