Comment: MP pay rise shows ALP blind to wage injustices in Qld

After pledging to freeze MPs’ pay rises, Premier Annastacia’s salary will leap $30,000 next week to $427,500. Is she worth it, asks Des Houghton. HAVE YOUR SAY IN OUR POLL

The Premier and her ministers seem to have forgotten their pledge to improve the lot of working families as they greedily grab another pay rise.

And what has the LNP got to say about it? Not much.

So who will lead the debate about wage justice in this state?

I’m still puzzled why Palaszczuk has not said a word about union charges that young travellers are being exploited in the fruit picking industries in Queensland.

And there is something terribly wrong when unionised lollipop workers can earn close to $180,000 a year on regional construction projects for holding up a sign when a teacher with seven years’ experience gets half that.

Nurses on an average of $65,000 a year get less than half of the pay handed to the lollipops.

An enrolled nurse with advanced skills still only gets $74,143.

The lollipops are a symbol of an unfair system of the Labor Party’s own making.

Of course, there will never be wage parity for a good reason. Some people are paid more than others because they have earned it and deserve it.

Why is Palaszczuk so quiet about wage imbalances in her own state. Could it be she is trying to hide the fact that her salary will soar $30,000 next month to $427,500?

“The jump will come despite the leader’s declaration to voters in a Facebook post from last year that there will be ‘no pay rises for Queensland MPs until 2023’,” news.com reported.

News.com added: “Deputy Premier Steven Miles’s annual pay will rise from $351,788 to about $376,000, while Opposition leader David Crisafulli and cabinet ministers will go from being paid $327,705 a year to about $350,000.

“Speaker Curtis Pitt’s pay packet will go from $303,000 to $324,500, while the salary of an MP will increase from $159,122 to $170,100.”

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszcuk at the Regatta Hotel in Brisbane, where she announced a further reduction of restrictions. Picture: David Clarke

Meanwhile, Labor continues to spruik the big lie, we’re all in this together.

I’m guessing Palaszczuk is the highest wage earner in her struggle-street electorate of Inala.

And here it is worth noting she was parachuted into the safe Labor held by her father, Henry Palaszczuk, the former member and Beattie government minister.

After winning Inala for Labor, Palaszczuk promptly moved out. She resides in the comfortable enclave of Seventeen Mile Rocks in Brisbane’s southwest. It’s not Inala, but you can still get a good view of Inala from the hill.

Palaszczuk’s pay rise comes at a time when many workers have lost their jobs and seen wages stagnate as a direct result of her questionable lockdown policies.

I suspect Labor’s policies that have turned Queensland into a police state were designed more to embarrass the Morrison government than to protect Queensland.

Labor policies are hurting the jobs market at a time when wage growth has slumped to one of the lowest rates in history.

While wages grew a modest 1.7 per cent, real wages fell 2.1 per cent thanks to a 3.8 per cent inflation rate.

Workers and retirees are experiencing the largest cut in our purchasing power since GST was introduced. While wage rates are at historic lows, government charges and council rates keep rising.

There is something terribly wrong when unionised lollipop workers can earn close to $180,000 a year on regional construction projects for holding up a sign when a teacher with seven years’ experience gets half that, writes Des Houghton. Picture: AFP PHOTO / WILLIAM WEST.

I fail to see how new homeowners will pay their mortgage when interest rates inevitably rise a percentage point or two.

And the politicians are audaciously handing themselves even more pay rises.

On top of their 2 per cent pay rise due in September, all 93 members of the Queensland Parliament will get another pay boost of 2.25 per cent in March 2022, and 2.5 per cent in September 2022.

Some of the people they represent are on the poverty line.

Farm workers struggle to pay their rent and grocery bills.

And there are backpackers with no skills who pick fruit to subsidise their holiday travels.

Some visa workers have made sworn statements to the Fair Work Commission about their poor pay and conditions to support an Australian Workers Union application for guaranteed hourly rate of pay.

Recent research by Unions NSW and the Migrant Workers Centre in Victoria found 78 per cent of horticulture workers were underpaid.

In a witness statement to the commission, a 32-year-old Taiwanese national said she picked strawberries on farms in Queensland and South Australia in 2018 and was paid a piece rate of 60 cents per kilogram.

“I worked 12 hours a day, but I could only make $50 per day,” she said. “I slowly progressed my speed so I could earn $100 per day after three months.”

The woman said she later picked oranges and was paid $25 for a bin of picked oranges.

The Fair Work Commission is considering an AWU application to amend the Horticulture Award.

IRRITANT OF THE WEEK

Police state lockdown madness that has seen vaccinated Queenslanders blocked from returning home from interstate.