Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

I rise and stand alongside retail workers, pharmacy workers and warehouse workers across our country, who deserve a pay rise and deserve to have a safe working environment. The Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association, better known as the SDA, continue to highlight the urgent need for wage justice and stronger protection for the frontline workers who keep our communities running.

Today I heard firsthand why it's so important to improve the pay for our young people and why that is so important to them. The SDA ran a campaign for a number of years, 'Adult Age = Adult Wage'. They won this because they campaigned hard, and they won it because they were listening to their young members, as we as a government have. Today I heard firsthand from a number of these young people, and their view is that just because you're 20 doesn't mean you don't have the same responsibilities or do the same job as someone older than you, so, if you do the job, you should get the pay. When their employer pays this additional salary, then they know that they're going to be able to afford to pay their rent. They're going to have enough money to actually be able to save. For many of them, it can reduce the number of jobs that they have just to make ends meet, and perhaps it can give them a social life as well.

We heard from a young woman who works 80 hours a week just to make ends meet, and she believes that the increase in her salary will mean that she won't have to work 80 hours a week and that she'll be able to save some money—but she's also hoping to have a balance, with a social life—to buy herself a home in the future. Another young man explained what it meant to him. When he moved out of home, he hadn't realised—I think all of us when we left home hadn't really appreciated what our parents had done for us—how expensive it is to live independently. This extra money won with this long campaign will enable him to meet his commitments but also to save some money. We heard from another young lady, who spoke about having multiple jobs and said that she had over many years saved some money, with a lot of sacrifice, and would be able to buy her very first home.

A lot of this has been brought about because of the campaign that the union ran but also because of the actions that have been taken by this Labor government to support our workers, to ensure that they keep more of the money that they earn and to ensure that young people have the opportunity to save, pay their commitments and get an education without working 80 hours a week. We had a young man from Tasmania, on his first time to Canberra, who spoke about being the main breadwinner in his household and how that money has enabled him to be able to contribute more to his family. We on this side say that people need to have fair wages for the work that they do—and they need to have a safe environment—unlike those opposite, who at every opportunity will vote against these measures.

These young people also spoke about the importance of superannuation. They are now campaigning to ensure that those under 18—15, 16 or 17, whatever their age—shouldn't have to work 30 hours a week minimum to attract superannuation. If it was an extra $7 an hour for getting the same wage as adults when you're doing the same job, this entitlement would equate to $7 extra an hour. It would also mean, when they retire, an $85,000 difference. That is significant. These young people see this.

These are the stories that we've heard. These are the stories that are told to unions. But these are the same stories that One Nation and the Liberals will not hear and that they do not support. At every opportunity, although they say that they're friends of the workers, they vote against tax cuts, against the cost-of-living measures and against equality in pay. We saw just last week that One Nation are saying very proudly that, if women aren't at work because they're on maternity leave, they should not be paid. That is woeful, after decades of women campaigning for this. (Time expired)