Miranda Devine: Don’t be fooled by Shorten’s wage talk

Bill Shorten is trying to make the federal election a referendum on wages growth, posing as the worker’s friend by championing a boost to the minimum wage. But don’t be fooled.

Bill Shorten is trying to make the federal election a referendum on wages growth, posing as the worker’s friend by championing a boost to the minimum wage.

But don’t be fooled.

For one thing, Australia already has the highest minimum wage in the world according to Germany’s Wirtschafts und Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut (WSI) in a 2018 report.

Raising the minimum wage is not good for businesses or employees.

MORE BY MIRANDA DEVINE:

Gladys has been badly let down by the National Party

Boeing must come clean after horror plane crash

How could mums of Jackson’s alleged victims allow this?

Australia also comes out on top when comparing pay on a purchasing-power basis.

Superficially, it might seem attractive to raise the minimum wage, but in practice it leads to fewer jobs for low-skilled workers and fewer hours offered by employers.

This leads in turn to more welfare dependency and the associated misery.

Inevitably, the extra wages bill is passed on to the consumer in higher prices.

If Shorten really wanted to help low-paid workers, he would make superannuation contributions voluntary, so people had the option to spend their own money when they need it instead of being forced to save for retirement and trust some future government won’t plunder it.

But he won’t, because his union mates would miss out on all the fees.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Picture Kym Smith

Shorten, the worker’s friend, will sell you out. Just look at his history.

When he was AWU boss he had a cosy arrangement with employers to trade away workers’ wages and penalty rates in exchange for secret payments to the union.

Two companies, Chiquita Mushrooms and Cleanevent, stood out at the Royal Commission into Trade Unions.

Chiquita paid the AWU $4000 a month for six months in 2004 while negotiating lower wages for workers in a new enterprise bargaining agreement.

Mushroom pickers testified they were made redundant and replaced by cheaper workers from a labour hire company at the time.

“The union sold us out,” former mushroom picker 67-year-old Josephine Hodgson said.

Cleanevent admitted giving the AWU a secret $25,000 payment in return for driving down workers’ pay.

Between 1998 and 2004 the deal reportedly saved Cleanevent more than $60 million.

Under Bill Shorten, workers get poorer and unions get richer.