Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Those opposite still haven't heard the message that Australians want to earn more and keep more of what they earn. In our first term, the Albanese government delivered landmark workplace relations reforms with a clear goal of getting wages moving for Australian workers, and that's exactly what we achieved. We addressed loopholes that undermine principles of fairness and improved access to secure jobs and better pay. We've reinvigorated enterprise bargaining, resulting in more cooperative, productive workplaces. We put gender equality at the heart of the workplace relations framework, helping drive the gender pay gap to its lowest level on record. We improved workplace conditions and protections across the board. In every annual wage review since taking office, we've backed minimum wage increases, with our most recent submission calling for an economically sustainable real wage increase. I'm pleased to see that, from 1 July, minimum wages have increased by 3½ per cent ahead of inflation.

These were significant and important reforms in our first term, but we know that there's more to do. Right now, the modern awards safety net can be undermined. Currently, penalty rates and overtime rates in modern awards can be rolled up into a single rate of pay that leaves some employees worse off, and there are currently cases on foot where employers in the retail, clerical and banking sectors are seeking to trade away the penalty rates of lower paid workers on awards. Our government doesn't think that's fair. It's why we intervened in those cases to block that from happening, and it's why, just today, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister Rishworth, has introduced legislation to protect penalty rates. We expect to see the whole House support that. (Time expired)