Australia election 2025 live: Labor argues for real wage increase at annual review; Greens propose to double nature spend
Key events
Dan Jervis-Bardy
Anthony Albanese will urge the fair work umpire to deliver an “economically sustainable” real wage increase for 2.9m low-paid workers.
Shifting its election campaign focus from health to wages, Labor will on Wednesday release its submission to the Fair Work Commission’s latest annual wages review.
The Albanese government has used previous reviews to call for wages for workers on the minimum wage and award to keep up with inflation, aligning with Labor’s message that pay packets shouldn’t go backwards amid soaring prices.
The commission last year announced a 3.75% increase to the award and the minimum wage, taking it to $24.10 per hour or $915.90 per week.
That increase was roughly in line with the inflation rate at the time.
In its submission to this year’s review, Labor has recommended “an economically sustainable” increase to real wages – in other words, a pay rise above inflation.
It said the increase should account for inflation – currently sitting at 2.4% – returning “sustainably” to the Reserve Bank’s target band this year.
The submission read:
An increase in minimum and award wages should be consistent with inflation returning sustainably to the target band this year, while providing further relief to lower income workers who continue to face cost of living pressures. Labor submits that this outcome is both fair and economically responsible.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it’ll be Krishani Dhanji with the main action.
Our top story this morning focuses on the world of online campaigning and its rules. Our reporters have discovered that Chinese-language influencers who mostly post lifestyle content are interviewing Australian election candidates on the social media app Rednote, allowing politicians to bypass an apparent “shadow ban” on campaigning by the app and reach a disengaged but vital audience.
Labor will kick off day six of its campaign by focusing on low pay, with Anthony Albanese urging the fair work umpire this morning to deliver an “economically sustainable” real wage increase for 2.9 million low-paid workers. In its submission to the Fair Work Commission’s latest annual wages review, the Labor party will call for “an economically sustainable” increase to real wages.
It’s good timing that there’ll be a big discussion about living standards, because our economics editor has been looking at the big question in the federal election: whether or not voters feel better off now compared with three years ago. Patrick Commins says the numbers show we have less disposable income, but the bigger picture is that we’ve been flatlining for a decade – Covid era excepted – with neither party talking about how that might change. More coming up.
And the Greens are calling for more of the budget to be set aside for nature. We’ll have more details on their proposal soon.
