QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:15): I thank the member for Gorton for her question and for her advocacy as a fantastic new member. Our legislation protecting childcare workers' wages is now law. It passed the Senate yesterday, meaning that it will make an enormous difference for a group in the workforce who for too long were underpaid and undervalued.

Before we were elected, childcare workers were leaving the job in droves. So we took action. We delivered a 15 per cent pay increase for those early educators and tied the funding to limited fee increases and better safety requirements—good for workers, good for parents and good for setting up the future success of our youngest Australians.

We backed those workers and their wages and always have. I'm asked about opposition to this program, and, of course, I'm looking at it across from us, there. The Leader of the Opposition and the coalition do not support this change.

They voted against it—every one of them. In the speech to the Sydney Institute, the Leader of the Opposition had this to say about our commitment to properly paying aged-care workers and early educators: Under Labor, the "care economy" workforce has … been awarded hefty pay increases by Labor's Fair Work Commission. Which Labor has then backed … Too right we have!

That is what we do. We back workers and we back wages. Five increases to the minimum wage—delivered; better wages for aged-care workers and childcare workers—delivered; same job, same pay and minimum standards for gig workers—delivered.

Wage theft is now illegal, and penalty rates are now protected. They argued against all that and voted against all that, and they want to abolish all that. For the coalition, paying workers properly is a problem.

But the Australian Labor Party will always back those workers—always—because Labor is the party of working people. We are the party of aspiration. We are the party of higher wages.

And, as the last election showed, we're also the party of lower taxes, which was also opposed by those opposite.