Corinne Mulholland (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You could have knocked me over with a feather today as I watched the coalition come into this place and talk about real wage growth. The cheek of it! When Labor came to office, real wages and income were going backwards under the coalition. Real wages fell for five consecutive quarters under the coalition. That's their record. On our watch, real wages and living standards are growing again under Labor. Let's have a look at who's received a pay rise under Labor: aged-care workers, childcare workers and award workers—these are some of the lowest paid workers in Australia and all have received a pay rise under this government. Four hundred thousand aged-care workers have benefited from wage increases, in addition to a 15 per cent award wage increase paid directly to aged-care workers in 2023. Childcare and early educators are receiving a 15 per cent pay rise funded by the government. That's a pay rise of at least $155 per week. Three million Australians who are award workers received a 3.5 per cent pay rise from 1 July. That's a real wage increase above inflation.

What did this government do about increases for working people? We put in a submission to the Fair Work Commission arguing for an economically sustainable pay rise for supermarket workers, for distribution workers, for hospitality workers, for retail workers—the list goes on. Under the former coalition government, what did they do? Their government's submission to the Fair Work Commission voted against a substantive pay rise, and they did that in 2016, 2017 and 2019.

Let's talk about what also puts more money in the back pockets of workers, and that's tax cuts. Delivering tax cuts for every single Australian taxpayer is the record of this government. We delivered one last year and we'll deliver one next year and another the year after. We've also delivered an instant $1,000 tax deduction. Labor's tax cuts will help 14 million Australian taxpayers. The coalition voted against that. They tried to stand between working people and a tax cut. Imagine coming into this place and lecturing the Labor Party on wages growth while voting against tax cuts.

I'll now move to Senator Cadell's question about rural road limits and drawing a very long bow towards net zero. I'm not sure where Senator Cadell is getting this stuff from—