Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

Congratulations, Senator Hume, on your new role as Deputy Leader of the Opposition. I am surprised that the first question you would ask us is around wages considering your record on wages, the fact that you wanted to sack 41,000 workers, the fact that you've criticised a lot of the investments we have made into aged care and early childhood education and care and into the wages of those individuals and the submissions that we make to the Annual Wage Review each year to get wages moving again—when your record was that annual real wages fell for five consecutive quarters before we came to office.

Real wages were going backwards 3½ per cent at the election in May 2022, and we have turned that around. We have had strong and consecutive quarters of real wage growth. This government supports people earning more and keeping more of what they earn, which is why we took tax cuts to the election too, which you opposed—because we wanted workers to keep more of their earnings and pay less tax on it. What was the position of the opposition on that? 'No, we are going to the election promising a tax increase for every working Australian—14 million Australians.' Not only were women 'bludgers' who had to go back into the office and were not allowed to work from home; that wasn't enough. Then, 'We would actually increase taxes on every worker at the same time that we are criticising the investments we have made into working peoples' lives.' (Time expired)