Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Cutting penalty rates is a government-sanctioned form of wage theft, pure and simple. It is something that we should resist and fight against. We cannot support seeing the wages of ordinary Australians, the wallets and purses of ordinary Australians, being squeezed to facilitate this form of wealth transfer. Its supposed benefits cannot be supported by the facts.

Two years ago, under the coalition government's watch, casualised industries, particularly hospitality, pharmacy, fast food and retail, had penalty rates cut. In November 2018 we saw more casual workers cop a cut of $77 per week. In July this year we had the next round of penalty rate cuts, impacting 700,000 workers all-up. Between Mount Druitt and Blacktown, nearly 12,000 workers will feel the impact of penalty rate cuts. An estimated one in six workers in my part of western Sydney has felt a cut to penalty rates.

All this, according to some business groups, did not create a single job. The supposed benefits are not being delivered. There is no economic benefit that has been seen as a result of this, not a job created. Worse still is what we are seeing in some of the industries that were supposed to have benefited from these cuts. Big W in Western Sydney has started the process of closing down stores, even after penalty rates were cut. Stores are closing down in places like Chullora, Auburn and Fairfield. So, again, all we have seen is ordinary workers lose out and no benefit to the broader economy.

It's all because the coalition, in an ideological war against people's wages, decided this through its ginger group. It has also started on superannuation, I see. The same ginger group that argued for this cut and then disappeared, because they won't have any speakers on their side back this, is now saying people's super shouldn't be increased as well. The coalition and some business backers are trying to brainwash others to say this is good for the economy. The facts don't support squeezing money out of pay packets and seeing profits grow at the expense of the wages share within our economy.

Something is happening in our economy. Underemployment is a big issue. People don't get the type of work they want. They're not getting full-time work. I think of the woman in Plumpton who grabbed me by the arm and said: 'I can't keep working a part-time job. I don't have a part-time mortgage.' Or I think of the people not getting a wage increase. Wages are hardly growing. If you look, for example, at wages growth, it was 2.2 per cent per annum in the five years to December 2018, but it was 3.3 per cent for the five years leading up to December 2013. Under the coalition's watch, wages are down. Real wages as measured by average weekly ordinary time earnings for adult employees working full-time adjusted for inflation grew only half a per cent per annum in Australia in the five years to December 2018.

It is unbelievable that this is happening, and some of the commentary around this is equally unbelievable. Last week we had this in The Australian. According to Michael Roddan's interpretation of some Treasury research:

Stubborn employees who refuse to move into more productive companies are a major cause of the nation's record-low wages growth …

In the Financial Review the same day an article was titled 'Don't expect pay rises, warn 40pc of CEOs'. We can't have a situation in the economy where some people will benefit and others won't. We need to be able to work together to ensure that growth and productivity increase but that everyone benefits from this. This has to be a priority. The only way to boost growth and productivity is to have that cooperative mindset.

The government do not have a clue how to fix this. Their track record based on the stats shows they will not fix this. They can only cut penalty rates, which is wage theft and which is robbing ordinary workers. We need to rethink the rewards system in our economy, get people focusing on this issue and coming up with a solution to this that grows the economy and make sure people's wages rise and that we do not see the economy only grow because we robbed the wages of ordinary Australian workers. It's not good enough.