STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Ms ALDRED (Monash—Opposition Whip) (16:39): I'm going to read a quote, and it goes like this: 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 their share of GDP is growing. That wasn't a captain of industry, it wasn't a CEO, and it wasn't a CEO.

It was Bill Kelty, the former secretary of the ACTU. I'm going to quote from Richard Holden in the Age, who says that 'labour's share is determined largely by global forces'. It doesn't speak to workers' standards of living.

Right now, for people who work with their hands, who spend a long time on their feet and who work on farms and in shops right across my electorate, that is their lived experience. Their standard of living is not improving. They are sitting at the kitchen table at night, looking at an energy bill stuck to their fridge and wondering how they are going to pay for that and afford their weekly grocery shop.

We've got the Business Council of Australia, who say that Australia is on track for the worst decade of productivity since records began. Under Labor, productivity has fallen by five per cent since March 2022. Businesses in my electorate grow, make and manufacture things the rest of Australia relies on.

They need a government that backs them in for a strong, sustainable future.