Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has promised to hire "the best lawyers in the country" in a bid to fast-track a wage hike for 1.2 million Australians if he is elected prime minister, as he kicks off a second week of campaigning for an election he has declared "a referendum on wages".
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Mr Shorten will seek to make a supplementary submission to the current review immediately if he becomes prime minister at the May 18 election in a bid to ensure that Labor's living wage plan is not sidelined until 2020, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have confirmed.
"If Labor is elected, we'll use the full force of the Commonwealth advocacy to make a submission to the national wage case to get wages moving in a modest and meaningful way," Mr Shorten said on Monday.
"We aren't going to go missing like this government has for the last six years. What we're going to do is make a full-bodied submission."
A spokeswoman said the plan would be contingent on the commission agreeing to consider the new submission in time for a wage hike to be implemented without delay on July 1.
While consultations for the current review are due to finish on May 15 - three days before the election - University of Adelaide workplace law professor Andrew Stewart said he expected it was likely the commission would agree to examine an additional submission from an incoming Labor government.
Without such an intervention, a Shorten government would have to wait until next year's wage review to deliver on its promise to lift the minimum wage - a key plank of Labor's election pitch.
If elected, Mr Shorten will ask the commission to accept a beefed-up version of its opposition submission lodged in March, drafted with the full authority and resources of a federal government.
Labor would also legislate to enable the commission to set a long-term "living wage" target, but is unlikely to achieve this before its 2019 wage ruling is handed down in June.
Professor Stewart said the commission could order an above-inflation minimum wage increase under the current rules, which require it to consider both "the performance and competitiveness of the national economy" and the living standards of low-paid workers.
This would reflect the commission's decisions in recent years, having increased the minimum wage by 3.5 per cent last year - ahead of the then inflation rate of 2.1 per cent - and 3.3 per cent in 2017.
The Morrison government used its submission to the current review to argue that Australia already has a "living wage", pointing out that it is among the highest in the OECD.
Employers are demanding that Labor resist taking action on its industrial relations reform agenda without extensive consultation with the business community, as a new report argues that forcing wages up could cost jobs.
KPMG Australia chief economist Brendan Rynne studied wage rises between 1995 to 2018 and found that industries that had fallen behind on their investment in technology were the most likely to be have workers battling low wage growth.
Financial, professional, scientific and technical services and manufacturing have seen higher wage growth, while accommodation and food services and administration services had the lowest.
"Our report shows the growing influence of hi-tech capital as a determining factor," he said.
Dr Rynne said wages were unlikely to see the "once-in-a-generation free kick" they got during the mining boom again and that government support for productivity through technology was key.
Labor will also unveil the next stage of its reforms to the skilled visa system on Tuesday, lifting the minimum salary a migrant can be paid by 20 per cent to $65,000 a year in a move the party says will stop firms under-cutting local Australian workers.
"When businesses use overseas workers as a cheap replacement for local workers it contributes to wage stagnation," Mr Shorten said.
SMH/The Age
