Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying, I'm very happy that we're ending the week of question time speaking about the government's important industrial relations policies, which are all about helping people get a decent pay rise, because if there's one thing that drives this government, it's our ambition to deliver a decent pay rise for working Australians, and there are some pretty simple reasons why that is—not just because Australian workers both need and deserve a pay rise but also because good, sustainable wage growth is good for our economy. Our policies provide workers on low and middle incomes facing the pressure of inflation and interest rates with a way to also get pay rises, and the best way to do this is by encouraging more agreements to be made and stopping the race to the bottom on wages.

But Australia's bargaining system has not worked effectively for a very long time—in fact, I would say for about 10 years. Only 15 per cent of employees are covered by an in-term agreement, and we want to make more agreements that benefit both employers and workers, rather than continue the conflict that we've seen over the last 10 years. Agreements allow trade-offs and provide a more simple and tailored set of conditions than the award, which benefits small business. To give one example of how this benefits small business, Jane has been an early childhood educator for 40 years. She's now the director of an early childhood education centre in Melbourne. She is incredibly passionate about her job, but it has been a tough industry to dedicate her life to. As the director of her centre she has faced constant struggles with staffing shortages, due to low wages and conditions in the sector. Jane and her sector, along with workers in 70 other sectors in Victoria, now benefit from being part of a multi-employer agreement, and not only have they won wages up to 18 per cent above the award; they've also won more things, like planning and professional development— (Time expired)