Grievance Debate

Wages Growth

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (15:13): South Australia and Australia have a wages problem. Every single credible economist, and every single credible social commentator, has been noting for some years that Australia and South Australia have a wages problem. We have had the lowest wage growth ever recorded in the history of our nation, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

We know that over the last five years in particular—in fact, since 2013—the Australian standard of living has been compromised when you take into account income and equality as a nation. All this is occurring of course at a time when profits have never been higher. As a percentage of our economy as a nation, profits are the largest they have ever been. Profit growth is the highest it has ever been but, simultaneously, wages growth has never been lower. We on this side of the house, as I think a growing number of Australians appreciate, realise this is not just a fundamental economic problem but an enormous question of social equity.

Whenever you see working people experiencing higher costs of living but at the same time struggling with their capacity to deal with that because of lower wages growth and our economy, we do not have just an economic problem; we have a social problem. We on this side of the house, people in Labor, understand that that is a problem worth addressing. We also know that unemployment has been a problem for this state. The fact is there are more unemployed people in South Australia today than at the change of government at the last state election. We know that it is an irrefutable fact that the unemployment rate is higher today than at the state election in 2018.

So what is this government's response to a wages problem and an unemployment problem? Their response is to sign South Australia up to a regional migration agreement that provides for lower wages for migrant workers than would otherwise be the case. Today, during the course of question time, we learned that the justification that the Premier has for signing us up to this deal is a supposed skills shortage, or a shortage in the labour market that needs to be addressed. I am not too sure where the Premier is coming from if he thinks that we address a labour shortage, a skills shortage in the market, by offering lower wages.

I do not know about you, Mr Speaker, and I do not know about anyone else in the chamber, but I have not met a worker who decides to change jobs on the basis of the prospect of lower pay for another opportunity around the corner. Nobody chooses lower wages, yet that is exactly what this Premier is providing for. There is absolutely no logic to conclude that signing South Australia up to a regional migration agreement that actively puts downward pressure on wages in our economy and actively seeks to bring in more workers from overseas on a lower rate of pay than would otherwise be the case would result in addressing a skills shortage within the labour market.

Instead, what we know is that any policy effort, including a regional migration agreement that provides for lower wages and puts downward pressure on wages within our economy, amounts to an Americanisation of our labour market. No-one believes that the answer to our economy's problems is a race to the bottom on wages. Let's be clear about the profound economic impact that this potentially has. Not only does bringing in workers on lower wages than would otherwise be the case potentially displace opportunities for young South Australians, particularly South Australians in regional communities, but we also know that it has the capacity to have a massive impact on small businesses in those local communities.

We understand on this side of the house that when working people get a wage rise, they are likely to spend it. When they spend it, they spend it in local businesses—small businesses. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker are all better off as a result of higher wages in our economy. When this government puts downward pressure on wages, puts downward pressure on wages in regional communities at the expense of local workers, we know that has the potential to have a profound economic impact and also a profound social impact.

We on this side of the house believe that same job same pay is a principle worth pursuing. We believe on this side of the chamber that immigrant workers should not be getting discriminated as to how much they are paid on the basis of where they come from and when. Everybody working in this economy deserves the opportunity for a decent standard of living at a decent rate of pay, and we cannot believe that this government would sign us up to anything but that.