QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator DARMANIN (Victoria—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (15:10): I know who the frauds are, and it's not Bill Kelty; it's all of those people over there. We're not going to take lectures from those opposite on things like productivity after the wasted decade on their watch. Now they're trying to rely on Bill Kelty to run their arguments for them.

Those opposite saw the worst decade for productivity in 60 years. Under the coalition, the rate of productivity fell for seven consecutive years—in the lead-up to the pandemic. The 2022 election coincided with the largest quarterly fall in productivity growth in more than four decades.

So, if we want to talk about frauds and what we need to do about productivity, it's not this side of the chamber that we need to be looking at; it is absolutely that side over there. Senator Cadell was talking about the urgency of this matter—and this matter is certainly urgent—but, when you're talking about decades of neglect from the other side, unfortunately we can't undo these problems with a snap of the fingers.

The Albanese government, however, has the broadest productivity agenda since the 1990s. Productivity has been a longstanding challenge in our economy, and that's why it was such a focus in this year's budget. Productivity has been weak for two decades, and that's why we are delivering the broadest agenda since the 1990s and taking action by doing things like cutting red tape, lowering taxes for businesses and startups, incentivising innovation and encouraging more efficient capital allocation in the economy.

I have very limited time, but, in addition to some of those measures, the government is focused on improving workforce participation, skills development and labour mobility. We just had a debate about workers in the economy and workers' wages. A significant area of reform undertaken by this government has been in workplace relations.

It is directly relevant to workers and designed to support them with the cost of living by increasing their wages. In terms of our industrial relations agenda, we have done a lot in both the first term and, now, the second term. We introduced a range of really important reforms in the previous term around criminalising wage theft, around protecting penalty rates and overtime rates and around minimum standards for gig-economy workers.

These are all reforms that were voted against by those opposite. These are real, tangible benefits to help Australian workers and to increase their wages every single week—voted against by those opposite. So, if they want to talk about supporting workers and increasing the real wages of workers, then they should be voting for measures like those.

In this term, since the outbreak of the conflict in the Middle East, we've also seen strong real wage growth for eight consecutive quarters in a row under Labor. This is the longest period of consecutive annual real wage growth in almost a decade. When we came to office, real wages were going backwards and fell for the five quarters leading up to the 2022 election.

Again, talk about hypocrisy! We want to talk about action, outcomes and what the consequences are for workers. Decent wages are what we need, and decent wages are what this government has been striving for, working for and delivering.

Decent wages are not accidental. They are because of a deliberate strategy of this government, just like the wage-suppression strategy was a deliberate strategy of those opposite, the former Liberal Party and National Party governments. The jig is up.

If you want to keep talking and deflecting from your position on improving workers' wages, don't try and invoke previous ACTU secretaries to do it. Own up to your own position on workers. (Time expired)