Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. How is the Albanese Labor government supporting Australian workers and easing cost-of-living pressures?

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank the member for McEwen for the question and for his advocacy for working people in his electorate. Of course, it is only a Labor government that is on the side of working Australians. In this budget that this Labor government delivered and that this Treasurer delivered, we delivered tax cuts for working Australians, and this is built on tax cuts we'd already delivered—ones that those opposite wanted to deny working Australians. It's not just through tax cuts that we are supporting working Australians. We are doing it through the laws that we pass in this parliament.

Some of those very important laws were our same job, same pay laws, because they were driven by a very, very simple principle: that working people and their wages should not be undercut by labour hire. In good news for working people, these laws are delivering pay increases to more than 8,000 workers and improving job security right across Australia, because these laws are about giving workers a fair go.

I want to point out that we are so committed to these laws that we made sure that the Fair Work Commission understood this principle earlier this year when it came to coalmine workers in Central Queensland. Yes, it was this government that was on the side of coalminers in Central Queensland, and just last week the Fair Work Commission upheld the principle, which has delivered higher rates of pay for hundreds of coalmine workers across Central Queensland—workers like Loretta. Loretta is a haul truck driver at a Central Queensland coalmine who has been doing this work for the past three years as a labour hire employee. Loretta was working the same job as direct employees and went above and beyond, clocking in for Easter, Mother's Day and Christmas Day, but she was still paid less than the people she was working alongside. Loretta fought to be paid equally, not just for herself but for the hundreds of other labour hire workers she worked alongside, and she told me that, with this decision, she finally feels properly valued for the work and is now recognised for the experience she brings. It's our laws that are delivering for workers like Loretta—close to $7,000 more per year—because Labor is the only party in this House that will back coal workers in Queensland and back workers right around the country.