ANTHONY ALBANESE MP
PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA

JIM CHALMERS MP
TREASURER

SENATOR MURRAY WATT
MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS

Labor is backing another pay rise for low paid workers to help with the cost of living.

We have made a submission today to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) recommending they award an economically sustainable real wage increase to Australia’s award workers. 

This will help around three million workers across the country, including cleaners, retail workers and early childhood educators.

Our earlier recommendations that real wages of low paid workers do not go backwards have helped secure an increase in the National Minimum Wage by around $7500 a year. 

In Labor’s submission filed today, we recommend that the FWC should go further and provide an economically sustainable real wage increase to Australia’s award workers.

An increase in minimum and award wages should be consistent with inflation returning sustainably to the RBA’s target band this year, while providing further relief to lower income workers who continue to face cost of living pressures.

This position is both economically responsible and fair. It will ensure low paid workers can get ahead as inflation continues to moderate and real wages continue to grow across the economy.

Labor’s approach is in stark contrast to the Coalition who never advocated for wage increases, oversaw wage stagnation for nearly a decade, and left the country with falling real wages. 

When we came to office real wages were going backwards by 3.4 per cent and had fallen for five consecutive quarters.  

This was part of the Coalition’s plan to keep wages low, a ‘deliberate design feature’ of their economic policy, which is an approach that continues under Peter Dutton.

When we came to government, inflation was higher and rising, real wages were falling and workers’ living standards were going backwards.

Under Labor, inflation is low, real wages and living standards are growing again and workers are finally starting to get ahead again, but the job is not done because people are still under pressure. 

The biggest risk to the progress we’ve made on wages and the economy is Peter Dutton.

Labor is helping Australians earn more and keep more of what they earn with strong and sustainable wages growth and tax cuts for every Australian taxpayer.

The contrast at the election couldn’t be clearer: Australians getting higher wages under Labor or working longer for less under the Liberals.


As at 2 April 2025.