I shall now proceed to motions to take note of answers. With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in accordance with informal arrangements agreed to by the whips.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

What we have here is some amnesia by this government. Every time you hear about anything good, we're told to look at what they've done, but, for anything bad, we heard that it's only been 4½ years, and they'll get to it.

When we talk about wages, they keep coming back with, 'Oh, low wages were a design factor.' Low real wage growth is better than backwards, negative real wage growth, and this is what we're talking about here. They talk about the headline number and say everyone gets more in their pay packet, but they forget to tell people: 'Your pay packet buys less. Your real wages are going backwards. Instead of getting $100, you may be getting $120, but you're only able to get what would have been 90 bucks worth of gear in the old year.' That's what they forget. They forget the reality. What number is in your pay packet doesn't matter as much as what you can get for it, and you are getting less. You are getting fewer groceries. You are getting less health care. You are getting less energy. You are getting less rental accommodation for every dollar you earn now. They say: 'Oh, no. It's been 4½ years. We haven't fixed it yet.' When are they going to fix it? They're talking about wage growth. It's like the captain of the Titanic saying: 'Good news. The water's coming in slower now. You're still going to sink, but the water's coming in a little bit slower.' That is the up news of this government on everything we see.

On everything, they're underperforming. On housing, on page 158 in budget paper No. 1, it says that 35,000 fewer homes are being built. That's in their own budget papers. They say: 'We're getting to it. We've got this plan. We're going to get there. We've got the five per cent housing thing'—which actually goes to as many foreign people as it does Australians. You can be a foreigner and get a five per cent housing deposit and buy a house. That goes there. They've got that plan. They've got the Housing Australia Future Fund, but they can't tell you how many homes have actually been built.

They can tell you about acquiring. They tell you about all these things. Well, in this life, activity isn't productivity, and this government is finding that out. Doing something—doing the wrong thing—doesn't mean you're fixing the problem. It just means you're doing something. So let's get off this activity and all these things that we're doing. If they aren't fixing the problem, get rid of the things.

We talk about productivity. Remember the productivity roundtable, the biggest thing in the world, to make Australia more productive in the world? It talked about getting out there, what we could do and the barriers to it. I believe there was a senator sitting out the front at a coffee table saying: 'Energy prices to fix productivity are the No. 1 thing. Change my mind.' Nothing has changed his mind, because nothing has happened in this regard. Australia's labour productivity is in the toilet. We are doing worse every month, every week and every year because of red tape, because we are strangling business and because this government thinks that, if the industry super fund can't buy you and they can't unionise you, you are not important to the economic growth of this country. They think small business is the enemy. Small business is the engine that drives this economy. All these people want to do is work out how they can get their hands on the super of the workers, how they can get their union fees and how they can slow it down to get their big fat cats in the big businesses going.

This is what we get down to. We talk about the real wages failure. Every time it comes up, they don't mention that word 'real' because they live in an unreal world. Let's talk about the real world, where these wages are going backwards and people are suffering.

We're talking about interest rates—the real thing in the question we heard there. How is housing affordability better—even if prices are falling, we're wiping out billions of dollars of people's wealth across the nation. When the interest rates go higher, your serviceability is less. You can't afford as much because your real wages are going down as the interest rates are higher and housing affordability is actually worse off—except they espouse it. What they're hoping is that you won't do the research yourself. You won't look at what they are.

They have been betrayed by Bill Kelty, a man who was a cornerstone of the ACTU, a cornerstone of the union movement and a cornerstone of Labor. He has called this government out for the fraud it is. He will hold you accountable, just like the Australian people will.

I know who the frauds are, and it's not Bill Kelty; it's all of those people over there. We're not going to take lectures from those opposite on things like productivity after the wasted decade on their watch. Now they're trying to rely on Bill Kelty to run their arguments for them.

Those opposite saw the worst decade for productivity in 60 years. Under the coalition, the rate of productivity fell for seven consecutive years—in the lead-up to the pandemic. The 2022 election coincided with the largest quarterly fall in productivity growth in more than four decades. So, if we want to talk about frauds and what we need to do about productivity, it's not this side of the chamber that we need to be looking at; it is absolutely that side over there. Senator Cadell was talking about the urgency of this matter—and this matter is certainly urgent—but, when you're talking about decades of neglect from the other side, unfortunately we can't undo these problems with a snap of the fingers.

The Albanese government, however, has the broadest productivity agenda since the 1990s. Productivity has been a longstanding challenge in our economy, and that's why it was such a focus in this year's budget. Productivity has been weak for two decades, and that's why we are delivering the broadest agenda since the 1990s and taking action by doing things like cutting red tape, lowering taxes for businesses and startups, incentivising innovation and encouraging more efficient capital allocation in the economy.

I have very limited time, but, in addition to some of those measures, the government is focused on improving workforce participation, skills development and labour mobility. We just had a debate about workers in the economy and workers' wages. A significant area of reform undertaken by this government has been in workplace relations. It is directly relevant to workers and designed to support them with the cost of living by increasing their wages.

In terms of our industrial relations agenda, we have done a lot in both the first term and, now, the second term. We introduced a range of really important reforms in the previous term around criminalising wage theft, around protecting penalty rates and overtime rates and around minimum standards for gig-economy workers. These are all reforms that were voted against by those opposite. These are real, tangible benefits to help Australian workers and to increase their wages every single week—voted against by those opposite. So, if they want to talk about supporting workers and increasing the real wages of workers, then they should be voting for measures like those.

In this term, since the outbreak of the conflict in the Middle East, we've also seen strong real wage growth for eight consecutive quarters in a row under Labor. This is the longest period of consecutive annual real wage growth in almost a decade. When we came to office, real wages were going backwards and fell for the five quarters leading up to the 2022 election. Again, talk about hypocrisy! We want to talk about action, outcomes and what the consequences are for workers. Decent wages are what we need, and decent wages are what this government has been striving for, working for and delivering.

Decent wages are not accidental. They are because of a deliberate strategy of this government, just like the wage-suppression strategy was a deliberate strategy of those opposite, the former Liberal Party and National Party governments. The jig is up. If you want to keep talking and deflecting from your position on improving workers' wages, don't try and invoke previous ACTU secretaries to do it. Own up to your own position on workers. (Time expired)

I have to say that was one of the more extraordinary question times that I have seen. The denial of the government of the reality that Australians are feeling could not have been any more on display, and we've just seen it from those opposite in response to this motion. They say, 'Don't invoke Bill Kelty'—well, Bill Kelty doesn't even believe you. Bill Kelty goes out into the media and says things like:

You had the treasurer say workers should be happy because their wage share is increasing, but their real wages are falling. It's just ridiculous and people get offended by it. They can't pay the bills, and you tell them your share of GDP is growing.

Australians understand that their real wages are going backwards. It doesn't matter what tricky language the government uses in relation to this. Australians understand—and Australians don't want the government's understanding; they want the government to do something about it. The government, in everything that it does, is driving the economy backwards. When you get the mastermind of reforms, as he is regarded in the media, in the last couple of days calling out the government for their failures—when Bill Keelty has to come and call it out—you know you've got a problem. Even in the face of that, the government cannot bring themselves to admit that there's an issue here. When a Labor luminary like Bill Kelty comes out and says that this is what's going on, you would think that Labor would be honest enough to acknowledge what he says, but they won't.

It didn't matter what issue was raised in question time, the denial, the obfuscation and the misinformation were profound. That was no more apparent than in the question asked in respect of pensioners and health insurance costs, where the effect of the government's policy is to effectively cut the pensions of a million Australians by $5 a week for singles and $15 a week for couples. That's the effect that the health insurance changes will have on up to a million pensioners, and the minister says it's the right decision. The minister in question time today said, 'Some might not welcome this decision.' I can tell you, when a million pensioners are effectively having their pensions cut by this government and its policies, I bet they won't welcome it. Why would they? Labor members should be extremely uncomfortable about the fact that, for up to a million pensioners, there's $5 a week, and $15 for couples, coming off their pensions because of the changes that Labor have made to private health insurance policies, and that's at the lower end of the scale. It's a mean and nasty trick that Labor use, with tricky language, to try and get out of this, and they should be ashamed. (Time expired)

It's a little bit conflicting today because finally we're actually hearing the coalition talking about the ACTU, which is a bit of a 'fall off your seat' moment for some of us. Senator Hume referred to comments by Mr Kelty, former secretary of the ACTU. Obviously, we may disagree with some of those comments, but, while we are talking about the ACTU and their achievements, I will take a moment to acknowledge the fine service of Sally McManus as the former secretary of the ACTU. She was an absolute tiger and a champion of working people. Some of her achievements, going back into the COVID era, include forcing the former coalition government to protect working people with a wage subsidy that the coalition fiercely opposed. But Sally McManus and the ACTU absolutely secured that for working people, against the coalition's greatest wishes. Under Sally McManus, union membership was up. She was a great leader, and people were joining unions. Her achievements also go to working with the government to achieve things like same job, same pay, closing the loopholes and our world-leading gig worker reforms. So, Sally, as a union member I thank you for your service to our country. I also welcome my good friend and former CPSU national secretary Melissa Donnelly as the new secretary of the ACTU. I know you're going to be an absolutely fierce champion for all working Australians, as you were for public servants with the CPSU.

I'm just so proud of the policies of our government because, unlike those opposite, who wasted a decade and racked up $1 trillion of debt with nothing to show for it, on this side, we're actually delivering for Australians. We're delivering real change. We're delivering $2,800 in tax cuts for all Australians, including in our upcoming year a $1,000 instant tax deduction and our $250 working Australian tax offset.

We are the party of higher wages. We are the government and party that has supported the Fair Work Commission to grant pay rises to those who earn the least. The minimum wage has grown over $12,000 since we came into government, and that is nothing to sniff at. I tell you what: on this side, we support people earning more and to have their share of the pie, unlike those on that side of the chamber. I believe it was former senator and former finance minister Mathias Cormann who was on Sky News and said low wages were 'a deliberate design feature' of their economic narrative. Shame! They kept people's wages low by deliberate design. Outrageous!

We on this side have been taking action to make it so people can go to the doctor. We have strengthened and we are transforming Medicare with our urgent care clinics. The tripling of the bulk-billing incentive in my home town in north-west Tasmania has seen an 84 per cent bulk-billing increase, which is making it affordable for people to go to the doctor. We have cheaper medicines. On this side, we are taking action to be able to give people a leg up. They did nothing but hold them back.

That was extraordinary—talking about the share of the pie. What we need to do is actually grow the pie so that everybody prospers, not rip off older Australians who can't find a way to put additional money in their pockets. Uncertainty not only kills them; it kills businesses. It kills aspiration. It kills just about everything. That's what you actually get from Labor. What's the point of working hard when Labor just looks for an opportunity to take from that hard work, rent seeking in your head and your house? That's what it's about. You would think that everything was fine out there, but it's not for Australians. Delusional deflection is what you get from Labor.

You only have to take a walk around the streets of Adelaide. There are four cabinet ministers in the Labor government here in this chamber. Walk around the streets of Adelaide and what you see is more people pushing trolleys around because they're homeless. More people are struggling. You only have to stand at a check-out to hear more people saying: 'Wow! This is just getting tougher all the time.' You hear it when you're actually out there with the people, not in this Canberra bubble.

Since Labor came to office, productivity has fallen nearly five per cent. That's cause and effect. That actually affects every single Australian. When inflation goes up, you've got less money in your pocket, not more. You're going to struggle to pay for that loaf of bread more than you did weeks before. Inflationary increases are important for every Australian. It's not just a buzzword; it actually has an effect on your everyday life, on your pay packet and on your family. It is harder when inflation is higher, and it is those folks on the other side that have made sure their policies have had inflation higher for longer. You don't have to look anywhere else. That's why you're doing it tough.

Australians have had the worst decade of productivity growth since modern records began. That's not by accident; that's by design. It's the design of those guys on the other side. It's their policies created in here that have no regard for their effect on the ground, on business or on the people that cause those outcomes for Australians. That's Labor's problem in a nutshell. You heard them celebrating economic statistics while Australians are going backwards in real life. We've got Australians who can't pay their mortgage. We've got Australians who are finding it really hard to pay for their grocery bill. They told us that, under their economic reforms—the so-called tax reforms, which were just really about a grab into your pocket to make sure they can pay for their budget black hole. That's not managing the economy. That's just grabbing from anybody who's got a bit of money in their pocket—from you, from those older Australians, from anybody who takes a second job. Do you know the person that benefits when the economy is really tough, when inflation goes up? It's those guys on the other side. They collect more GST. They're getting more and more taxes from you, and your wages go down. That's not the way you create prosperity in this country for anyone. Business is the engine room of the economy. Energy is everything, and those people have failed you on that. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.