Address to Australian Services Union National Conference 2024

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It is a pleasure to join with you here today at your National Conference. In fact, this is my second national union conference today. This morning, I was in Perth at the AWU National Conference, and I have made it a real priority since taking on this role a couple of months ago to get to as many union conferences, and union-based events, as I possibly can.
 
Because I think it’s really important as a parliamentary representative of the union movement that we connect with union members, union delegates and union officials, as often as we can, to hear from you about what’s going on in your workplaces, hear from you about what you’d like to see us deliver on behalf of the people you all represent.
 
So, it’s no trouble at all to come along tonight, in fact, there was no way I was going to miss this conference, in particular, seeing as I have been a proud member of the ASU and the Together Union since my mid-20s.
 
Since that time, not only have I been a member, but I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with your union, as a member, but also as an employment and industrial lawyer representing your members, as a Senator, and now as a Minister. 
 
I’ve had the pleasure of working with your members and officials on all sorts of issues, in all sorts of industries, in the public, private and community sectors. And that is the kind of union that you are, you do span all sectors of the economy, so many different industries, and it’s the power of different ideas and different experiences that means that the ASU is one of Australia’s fastest growing and most effective unions. So, well done to all of you.
 
As you can probably tell, I am absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to take on this role as Australia’s Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations - because I believe very strongly in the power of the union movement and I believe in strengthening the rights of working people.
 
It’s what my whole career has been about. It’s what my family has been about. We are a family of three generations of union members, and with a son who graduated year 12 yesterday, we are expecting our fourth-generation union member soon.
 
And I know that standing up for working people isn’t just what I’m about, it’s what all of you are about as well. Because that’s the work that you do every day, whether you’re an official, delegate or member - helping Australia’s working people get a better deal in the workplace.
 
That is noble, important work – that is at times very stressful, but I think you all can agree that is can also be very rewarding work to be part of.
 
So, I do want to thank all of you at the ASU for your hard work and advocacy over many decades.
 
Before I take you through some of the things that we are doing at a federal level and what that is delivering for working people. I do want to recognise at the outset, that all of the work that we do for workers is a genuine partnership between our political wing and our trade union wing.
 
I think you would all agree that we are most effective as a movement when we are working together, when we are on the same path, fighting for the same people with the same values. And it’s terrific at the moment to have such a strong trade union movement in Australia backed in by strong state governments in many parts of our state, and a Labor Government that is committed to Labor values and union values achieving so much together.
 
I think the reason that really matters is it’s probably hard to think of another time in our history where employment and wages policy have been so important for Australian workers.
 
Because you would know that the biggest issue that most Australians continually experience is real cost of living pressures.
 
It’s what everyone is talking about, you don’t need an opinion poll to tell you that.
 
We can see it every day.
 
You can see it when you are talking to your members. We can see it when we’re talking to our constituents that people are still under real pressure because of those global economic conditions that are hitting home here in Australia.
 
That’s why every single day the Albanese Labor Government is working hard to deliver to working people.
 
We’ve done a range of things in the two and a half years we’ve been in office.
 
We’ve driven down inflation to the point that it’s now less than half the rate of what it was when we first came to office.
 
And that matters for working people, because it’s working people who suffer the brunt when they see prices of goods and services continue to rise.
 
We’ve created more than a million new jobs. And, in fact, today we’ve got the figures that show that even as the economy is softening a little bit, in the last month alone, Australia has created 16,000 more new jobs to add to the more than 1 million that have been created since we’ve come to office.
 
And that is the most number of new jobs that any Australian government has ever created in a single parliamentary term in Australian history, and you’ve been a really big part of that achievement.

We’ve delivered a range of cost of living relief, as I know the South Australian Government here has, as well.  But when we think about how to help people with their cost of living pressures, it is important to be doing the tax cuts for working people, it is important to be delivering the energy bill relief and all of the other types of support that we’re giving people.
 
But making sure working people are earning, good, decent, and increasing wages is also a vital part of helping people deal with their cost of living pressures.
 
And that’s been my key focus since taking on this role – making sure we do see working people get those increasing wages that they deserve, and that are so necessary to stay afloat in what are really tough times.
 
We went to the last election promising to improve job security and deliver higher wages, and that’s exactly what we’ve done.
 
And for two days in a row, we’ve seen new data come out that shows these things are working.
 
I’ve already mentioned the fact that today we got more good news on the jobs front.
 
Yesterday, you may have seen that we had data released by the ABS that showed for the fourth consecutive quarter we have had real wages growing in Australia. In a consecutive year, we’ve had Australian wages growing higher than inflation, even though inflation has been quite high as well.
 
Again, that’s really important for workers, and what it means in dollar terms is that the average full-time Australian worker is now earning through their wages, on average, $159 extra per week since we were elected. 
 
And if you’re adding the tax cuts that we’ve delivered for workers - an average of $44 extra per week. Put together, that is an extra $200 per week in the pocket of every Australian worker on average.
 
This is absolutely crucial for people to get through these tough times.
 
Now, I would be the first to say that we recognise times are still tough for people, and it’s not about patting ourselves on the back and saying what a great job we’ve done.
 
We still want to do more, but I do think it’s important that we take the chance to recognise what’s been achieved by that partnership, between a Labor Government in Canberra, a Labor Government here in South Australia, other Labor state governments around the country, and of course, more than anything, the mighty trade union movement.
 
You have probably heard over the course of your conference quite a number of the things that we have delivered as a government in the IR space, and I don’t intend to take you through the whole list, because there are other people that are more important to hear from than me.
 
I did want to focus on, in particular, given I’m at the ASU, on the things that we’ve done that have been about improving gender equality in the Australian workforce. And that is something I know your union has proudly led the charge on for so many years.
 
I wasn’t in government, but I very well remember the Equal Pay case that was won after being run in the community sector. And I know that on a range of other issues, your union has been at the forefront of mounting the campaigns that have been needed to deliver better gender equality.
 
To give you a few examples of some of the things that have happened since we’ve come to office, one of the first things we did, of course, was delivered on something you’d campaigned for, which was paid family and domestic violence leave for Australian workers.
 
Because you would all know, and I think everyone accepts that no woman should ever be put in the place of having to choose between her safety and her income.
 
And now, as a result of that leave entitlement, that is making life just that little bit easier for people who are going through a real struggle in their private lives.
 
We changed the objectives of the Fair Work Act to include not just job security, but gender equality, and what that means is that for the first time in our history, when the Fair Work Commission is making any decision, they have got to consider gender equality and how they are going to hand down a ruling that will deliver it.
 
We’re starting to see that flow through in a range of other decisions of the Fair Work Commission.
 
We’ve banned pay secrecy clauses, we’ve provided stronger protections against workplace discrimination, against workers subjected to family and domestic violence, we’ve legislated for the public disclosure of corporate gender gaps, we’ve expanded paid parental leave to six months, with superannuation now to be paid on it.
 
We're breaking down gender stereotypes by encouraging women into traditionally male occupations through Free TAFE places, and of course, we're reviving bargaining, including multi-employer bargaining that is so important for so many low paid workers, not to mention the pay rises that we're funding for early childhood workers and aged care workers.
 
So, there's a range of other things that we're doing that will benefit all workers, but in particular, having women as a focus of our government has been core to what we've been doing from day one.
 
And how could it not be when we're the first Australian Government in history to have a majority female caucus. So, it matters to get women like Lisa elected into Parliament.
 
What that means is that all of those things together that unions and governments have delivered for Australian workers. It means is that we've now got the gender pay gap down to the lowest level in Australian history, at 11.5% percent, down from an average of 15.4% under the Coalition.
 
Now, we know there's more to be done on this front, and I reckon that one of the great advocates for women workers, our great late comrade, Linda White, she would be pretty pleased with what we've all managed to achieve, but she'd be absolutely the first out there telling us and urging us all to do more.
 
We know that there is more to do. There is still a gender pay gap, and we have big plans to try to tackle that. And one of the most important things that I know all of us are working on on this front is the historic gender undervaluation case that is currently before the Fair Work Commission.
 
And again, I recognise the very long-term campaign that your union has run along with other unions to achieve the pay parity that Australian women deserve.
 
And just as our government supported increases to the minimum wage which disproportionately benefit women workers. We're supporting the application by the ASU and other unions to properly classify women's work, which historically has been undervalued.
 
So, that is going to be one of the things that we'll see roll through over the next few months and potentially into the next term of government. It's one of the things that we do need to do more on, just as there are other things that we need to do more on that we're in discussion with unions about, like reproductive leave, and the impact of AI in the workplace.
 
Just before I finish up, I do think it's important not just to give ourselves, as I say, a pat on the back about all the things we've managed to deliver. Because we do need to recognise that all of these gains that we've made over the last two and a half years are at stake at the next federal election.
 
We know in our hearts and in our bones that if there's a change of government to Peter Dutton and the Coalition, all of those gains that we made will be lost, and that will be going back to the bad old days that we had through them over 10 years.
 
And why do we know that? We know that because that is what the Coalition always do when they're in government. They used to boast about the fact that their economic policy was based on deliberately keeping wages low.
 
That's what they do in government. They attack unions, they attack workers. They'll do it again.
 
We also know this because of what they've done while they've been in Opposition. Every single one of those workplace reforms was opposed by the Coalition when we put them through the Australian Parliament.
 
Every single one of those cost of living measures we provided for workers has been opposed by the Coalition.
 
When they are in government, they cut wages and conditions.
 
While they’ve been in Opposition, they've done everything they can to block those changes.
 
And what they’ve already done is tell us the things that they'll cut if they do win the next election.
 
So even before the next campaign even starts, they are on the record saying they will get rid of multi-employer bargaining.

They will review Same Job, Same Pay laws - and they never review it in a way that benefits workers.
 
They have said they will get rid of the right to disconnect so it's unpaid overtime back again.
 
They will get rid of the changes we've made for casual workers, which, again, the majority of whom are women.
 
These are the things they’ve already said they will do if they win the next election, and they promise that they'll be taking more repeals to the next election before we get to polling day.
 
So, there will be such a clear choice at the next federal election. And it is so important that all of us in this room who care about working people in our country do everything we possibly can, not just to secure the re-election of a Labor Government that has delivered so much for working people, but to stop Peter Dutton and the Coalition getting back in and wreaking havoc.
 
And just think about this: at a time when Australians are still doing it so tough, Peter Dutton and the Coalition want to make things worse.
 
How heartless, how callous. And I know that I can count on the ASU to get out there and join us in the campaign to make sure he is never Australia's Prime Minister.