David Feeney (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are over 300 people in my local community who are employed in the Australian Public Service. These locals are Australians with mortgages, bills to pay and families to feed. For over 1,000 days they have been let down by a government who cannot or will not resolve public sector bargaining.

One of the people affected is Melissa. Melissa is a single mum with two school-age children, working part time hours at Centrelink. She has not had a pay rise in three years and it is becoming increasingly difficult to make ends meet as the costs of living continue to rise. Being a single mum means that Melissa relies on her part-time work to balance work commitments and childcare responsibilities, pay her bills and perform her important work with Centrelink. Under this government, DHS keeps offering Melissa substandard enterprise agreements which would remove all certainty over her working hours and would pressure her to return to full-time work or into an unsecure future.

This is the first government in 30 years that has not been able to resolve public sector bargaining. That is perhaps not unusual, given that this is the first government to lose a vote in the House of Representatives in more than 50 years and the first government to support an opposition second reading amendment ever in the history of this place. But how can we trust the Prime Minister and the Liberals to govern the nation in the interests of all Australians when they cannot even responsibly fulfil their power as an employer? We know that this government— (Time expired)