Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister and someone who is very excited that today we will vote on the Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill. This is the plan that Labor took to the election to make sure that working Australians get the pay rise that they deserve. We know that for so long working Australians been working harder and harder, haven’t been getting the pay increases that they have well and truly earned. And for many Australians, the enterprise bargaining system is not working for them. So, what we are trying to do is put legislation to this Parliament to make sure that we can lift the wages of millions of working Australians so that working families have a bit more money in their pockets.
What we have also seen this week is some ridiculous statements by Senator Michaelia Cash and others about the supposed impacts of this Bill. When we saw Senator Cash say that this legislation would “close Australia down”, it showed how seriously out of touch she is. It showed us that they don’t know how tough some Australians are doing it. They don’t know how poorly wages have failed to grow under her previous government. And when we think about closing Australia down, when indeed Australia did have to close down during the pandemic, it was workers in aged care, workers in childcare, those essential workers who we relied upon. And what we want to do is make sure they get the benefits of our enterprise bargaining system and that we have more protections in our industrial relations system. Protections so that people can’t advertise a job below minimum wage, something that is currently legal. Protections, so that we have gender equality as an explicit object in the Fair Work Act. So these are the sort of ideas that Labor is bringing to the Parliament.
And the only idea that there is any uniformity when it comes to the Opposition at the moment and the ideas that they’ve brought to this Parliament this week following the Leader of the Opposition’s budget reply, the only idea they’re bringing to the table is nuclear power. We want to give people in electorates across Australia a pay rise. Peter Dutton and the Liberals want to give people in electorates across Australia nuclear power plants.
Ultimately it again shows that we’ve got one side of politics rehashing debates of the 1980s and the other side trying to move Australia forward, make sure that people can get the pay rises they deserve, and an industrial relations system that delivers better jobs, secure work, better pay. That’s what we’re focused on today. I’m very excited that just after 9:00am the Parliament will be voting on this legislation to make sure that we continue to deliver what we promised the Australian people on the 21st of May – a pay rise for working Australians and to get wages moving again. Thank you.
