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

I'm not surprised to see members of the opposition moaning and groaning about this topic, because we know they've never met a worker who depends on their penalty rates to pay their bills. We know that they still haven't heard the message that Australians voted for a government that ensured that they are earning more and keeping more of what they earn and that they rejected an opposition that was about cutting pay and making work more insecure.

I've got some news for you: penalty rates and overtime rates matter to working Australians. Employees relying on penalty rates are more likely to be women, to work part time, to be under the age of 35 and to be employed on a casual basis. We are talking about people like Emily, a retail worker from New South Wales, expecting her—