Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

You have the empirical data but you refuse to release it because you know that it shows an attack upon the take-home pay of working Australians. In his contribution, the minister also referred to the minimum wage. When the Fair Pay Commission last week awarded $27 to Australia’s lowest paid employees, no-one was more surprised than John Howard and Kevin Andrews. No-one was more surprised than the government. And do you know why? Because if the government’s submissions to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission had been agreed to, on Thursday the minimum wage would have been $50 a week, or $2,600 a year, lower. If ACCI’s submissions—and I very much enjoyed their dinner last night—had been agreed to by the Industrial Relations Commission, the minimum wage would have been $95 a week, or $4,490 a year, lower.

Over the last decade, the government has continually been making submissions that seek to reduce the minimum wage. In its formal submission to the Fair Pay Commission less than three months ago, the government said:

For example, a 10 cents per hour increase in all minimum rates is estimated to reduce employment by 0.33 per cent or 32,800 jobs.

In other words, the government’s submission to the Fair Pay Commission was that, if you increase the minimum wage by $27, as the Fair Pay Commission did, you will increase unemployment by 236,000 jobs—because for decades the Prime Minister, the Liberal Party and the Howard government have been saying to the Industrial Relations Commission that if you increase the minimum wage you will automatically increase unemployment. No wonder we saw such an adverse reaction from the ACCI, which has also held that view.

The government’s response to the Fair Pay Commission decision was massively hypocritical. For a decade the government has been saying to the Industrial Relations Commission, ‘Reduce the minimum wage.’ If the government’s submissions had been agreed to, the minimum wage would be $2,600 a year lower. And do not let anyone be fooled as to the magnitude of this increase. The government uses the headline figure, but, over a 12-month period, in September 2006 dollars this is actually a 0.7 per cent increase in real terms in the minimum wage. It is less than that if you take the start-up point as being 1 December—which it is. In real terms it is half the average increase in the minimum wage over the last five years and the equal second lowest increase in a decade. That is the real increase in the minimum wage over the last 11 years. The increase we saw last week—0.7 per cent in real terms—was the equal second lowest in a decade and the lowest in five years.

This government is engaged in an attack upon the take-home pay of working Australians that is primarily focused on penalty rates, leave loadings and shift allowances—all the take-home pay components that working Australian families have relied upon for so long to make ends meet. The government, having been sprung on that when it released the empirical data in May, is now engaged in a red-hot scandal and cover-up today.

The Prime Minister is a serial misleader when it comes to industrial relations matters. He told the Australian public, at the Liberal Party’s launch of its industrial relations policy in 2004 at the last election, that he would make no changes to these so-called ‘allowable matters’—no changes to the things that he now refuses to release information about. Do you know why? Because he has got his magnificent seven interest rate increases, with penalty rates, leave loadings, shift allowances, take-home pay components and public holiday penalty rates all down. That is the Howard government’s and the Liberal Party’s formula for working Australians: cost of living up, take-home pay down—and they will cover up anything to avoid that conclusion being drawn. They will do anything, say anything, mislead on anything and cover up anything to avoid that conclusion being drawn, but that conclusion will be made by the Australian public at the next election. (Time expired)

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