Address to the SDA National Council

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Thanks very much for the honour of being here today to address your National Council.

I would like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today - and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging.

I would also like to acknowledge Michael, Gerard and Helen from the National Executive who are all here today, the various branch secretaries from around the country and of course the officials and delegates who work so hard for your members.

As Australia’s new Employment and Workplace Relations Minister, I’ve made it my priority to get to as many union conferences as possible in the back end of this year.

As a longtime union member, a former union lawyer – including for SDA members – and more recently as a Senator, I’ve been proud to work alongside Australia’s trade union movement to ensure working people have the dignity and conditions they deserve.

It’s something I know you’re proud of too, and I want to thank all of you at the SDA for your advocacy for change, to promote gender equality in the workplace, stronger protections for workers with caring responsibilities and for major reforms to bargaining and delegates’ rights.

For these reasons and more, it’s always good to come and talk directly with union delegates and officials, and to hear from you about what is happening on the ground.
 
INTRODUCTION

I’m sure you’d agree that it’s hard to imagine another time when our country’s industrial relations and wages policies are more important.

Because those policies are central to the issue that everyone knows is top of mind right now – the cost of living.

We all know that many Australians are doing it tough, particularly low-paid workers, like many of your members.

That’s why every day since we came to government, our Labor government has been focused on reducing cost of living pressures.

We’ve worked hard to turn Liberal deficits into Labor surpluses, helping with the fight against inflation.

We’ve created nearly a million new jobs – the most in any single parliamentary term in Australia’s history.

We’ve delivered fairer tax cuts, energy bill relief, more bulk billing, cheaper childcare, cheaper medicines, rent assistance and HECS relief for students and graduates.

But as well as reducing people’s living costs, the other thing governments can do to help Australians right now is to help them earn higher wages.

The approach governments take, to wages and employment, is central to relieving cost of living pressures.

At the last Federal election, you would’ve seen that we promised to provide greater job security and to get wages moving again.

And I’m really pleased to say that things are starting to change – for the better - because of the deliberate steps we have taken as a government, in partnership with the trade union movement.

And today, as we near the end of this term in office, I’ll talk to you about the reforms we’ve delivered, how those reforms are helping Australian workers right now, and why we need to work hard to counter the risk of a future Coalition Government taking all of these hard-fought wins away.

SECURE JOBS

I recognise the SDA has been very active, for some time, in improving job security, including for casual workers.

One of the first public appearances I made after taking on the role of Workplace Relations Minister was to join about a dozen SDA members, who work as casuals at a shopping centre in Peter Dutton’s electorate of Dickson.

It was great to talk to them and their delegates about some of the issues in their workplaces and to discuss the changes the Albanese Government has made to boost job security.

The most recent key legislation was the introduction of our world-leading Closing Loopholes legislation, most of which came into effect in August.

Groundbreaking reforms, to give more Australians secure jobs, better pay and safer workplaces.

The new laws give workers greater protections around workplace conditions, job security, and their ability to balance work and life, as well as stopping the underpayment and undercutting of Australian workers’ pay and conditions.

Like those casual supermarket workers I met in Dickson a few weeks ago.

People like Georgia, who said that her colleague’s casual employment status meant they were not able to apply for a mortgage or a car loan.

Or Trent, who told a story of a casual employee of 12 months wanting to progress their career but unable to move forward, because as a casual they were not taken seriously.

Of course, if a worker wants to remain a casual employee, that’s a legitimate choice.

But we know some workers want more job security and haven’t been able to get it.

Our reforms mean the ‘permanent casual’ rort, which denied workers their rights, is over.

Casual employees can now choose to seek permanent employment after 6 months, or 12 months for small business employees, if they no longer believe they meet the definition of a casual employee.

Businesses can still hire casuals to meet their needs in the same way they always have.

But casuals working like permanent employees will have a clearer pathway to permanency and the job security this provides if they want to.

And that’s good news for people like Georgia, Trent and their workmates.
 
BETTER PAY

As well as delivering more secure jobs, our workplace reforms are also helping Australians get better pay, at a time they really need it.

Under the Albanese Government people are earning more and keeping more of what they earn.

Every single year since coming to office, we have advocated for minimum wage rises at the Fair Work Commission.

Something the former Coalition Government never did once in ten years.

And through Labor's efforts, the full-time minimum wage has increased by $143 a week over the life of our government.

That works out to be nearly $7,500 extra a year for minimum wage workers.

We have also changed the bargaining system, encouraging more workers and employers to come to the table to bargain for better wages, more flexible and productive workplaces.

This is good for workers, good for businesses and good for the economy.

The Albanese Labor Government’s changes to our bargaining laws have changed lives for workers like Sonny at Bunnings in Darwin.

Sonny said that his new agreement provided workers with flexible rostering arrangements, pay increases and more annual leave.

Sonny can now access more flexible rostering arrangements that gives him an extra day per week to spend with his baby son.

This extra time with his son is lifechanging for him and his partner.

He feels like now, because of the new agreement, Bunnings is a place he wants to work at for a long time. Which is good for his employer too. 

And Sonny’s not the only worker benefiting from our changes to bargaining.

You might have seen on the weekend some new figures that show average private sector pay rises in new enterprise agreements have reached four per cent for the first time in 12 years, while the number of workers covered by agreements has risen to over 2.2 million, the highest since 2020.

And not surprisingly, union agreements are delivering average pay rises higher than non-union agreements. It really does pay to belong!

PROTECTING WORKERS

While ensuring wages continue growing and workers have more secure jobs, providing safer workplaces has been another primary focus for our government, as it has for your union.

Whether it be aggression at work, women’s economic security or your other campaigns, I recognise the SDA’s long term advocacy for worker safety.

One of the first things we did when coming to government was to introduce the right for millions of workers to access paid family and domestic violence leave.

This historic change has meant for the first time, Australian employees – including casuals – can access 10 days paid leave each year to deal with the impact of family and domestic violence. 

Importantly, if someone takes family and domestic violence leave, it will not show up on their payslip as leave, ensuring the privacy and safety of victim survivors. 

It’s estimated 3.8 million Australians aged 18 years and older have experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner or family member. 

The Albanese Labor Government recognises the urgency to address family, domestic and sexual violence and is committed to ending it in one generation. 

That’s why in our first two Budgets alone, we made a record investment of $2.3 billion in women’s safety. As well as implementing all recommendations of the groundbreaking Respect@Work report, to ensure women have the safe and respectful workplaces they deserve.

We have also criminalised the intentional theft of wages from workers in Australia.

Not paying penalty rates or shift allowances, not paying overtime, not being paid for breaks, not being paid super, not paying you for leave and not receiving proper allowances are all examples of wage theft that has occurred in Australia.

Kind of sounds like Peter Dutton’s IR policies.

Wage theft can significantly affect quality of life by denying you what you are owed for the time you have worked.

Wage theft doesn’t just affect people who have not been paid at all.

It also affects people who have been paid short a few dollars an hour, people not getting the right rates for weekend work or overtime, and people who are denied access to their leave.

Not getting a few dollars less an hour might not seem like much, but it adds up to a lot over months and years.

Which is why intentional wage theft is now a crime.

And our new laws are dealing with new forms of underpayment, by giving eligible workers the right to disconnect.

Clocking off used to mean something in this country.

It meant time with your kids, time with your friends or just time to yourself to relax.

But technology has changed how many Australians work.

Many workers feel pressured to remain connected to their emails and calls long after they have finished their workday.

It should not be controversial that workers shouldn’t be required to do unpaid overtime.

It is our view, that if workers aren’t being paid, they should not be expected to monitor, read or respond to contact from their bosses.

Despite the claims from our opponents, the right does not prohibit employers or employees contacting one another after hours.

It just means, in most circumstances, an employee does not need to respond until they are back at work.

And finally, another important change we’ve made is to provide specific rights and protections for people like you, workplace delegates doing their job every day on site.

 The changes mean that employee delegates are entitled to:

• reasonable access to communicate with members and potential members about matters of industrial concern
• reasonable access to workplace facilities, and
• paid time to undertake workplace delegate related training

These are rights that should have always been in Australian law, and now are in Australian law.

I’m sure you’ll agree that all of these changes restore some much-needed balance into our workplace relations system and they are delivering the secure jobs, better pay and safer workplaces that all Australian workers deserve.

CONCLUSION

But it’s not enough for us all to pat ourselves on the back for what’s been achieved in just one term.

Because all of this is at risk at the next election.

Peter Dutton and the Liberals and Nationals opposed every single one of the changes we put through the parliament because they said our changes would ‘close down Australia’.

That’s because they fundamentally do not think that workers deserve to be paid appropriately.

Every day the Liberals and Nationals get out of bed and try to work out how to attack unions and workers and keep wages low.

They readily admit that low wages were a “deliberate design feature” of their economic policy, last time they were in government.

We understand that people are doing it tough right now, that’s why we’ve been working so hard to get wages moving again and provide much needed cost of living relief while bringing down inflation.

But imagine how much worse things would’ve been under Peter Dutton and the Coalition.
Not only did they oppose Labor’s workplace laws; now they want to take them away.

Peter Dutton has already made express promises to scrap the right to disconnect, the new rights for casual workers and he’s promised there will be more changes to come.

This is what Peter Dutton told the national small business summit, when talking about industrial relations earlier this year…

We will wind-back excessive government intervention which is holding back our economy.

We will remove regulatory roadblocks and stay off the backs of businesses to allow them the freedom to flourish.

And we will look to make our industrial relations system simpler.

We all know what that means, right?

Cuts to overtime, cuts to allowances and cuts to penalty rates.

At this time when cost of living is biting families hard, the workers of Australia simply cannot afford to have their pay cut.

And that is exactly what Peter Dutton wants to do.

It took the Coalition their entire wasted decade in office to lift the minimum wage by as much as we have in our first term.

That’s because the previous Liberal and National Government never once argued for a rise in the minimum wage.

They wanted to keep wages low – and that’s one of the few promises they delivered on.

Over the next few months, our job – together - is to fight every day to keep Peter Dutton from putting his hand in your pocket, and taking out your hard-earned wage rises and improved conditions.

So over the next few months, let’s get out there, lets celebrate the wins we have had and let’s work really bloody hard to make sure they don’t get taken away.

Thanks a lot for the chance to talk to you.