Prime Minister doubles down on same job same pay laws ahead of implementation despite industry opposition

Anthony Albanese will use a speech to mining industry workers to call for a defence of the Government’s same job, same pay laws, which have been slammed by industry, ahead of their implementation this week.

Speaking at the Mining and Energy Union’s national convention in Brisbane on Monday, the Prime Minister will urge unionists to support the laws in a highly political pre-election pitch amid a fight with miners over industrial relations reforms.

The new laws, which mandate the same pay for workers employed through labour hire, will see wage increases from applications flow from Friday.

However, mining heavyweights have heavily criticised the laws, including BHP, which has said the changes will cost the company more than $1.3 billion a year and destroy productivity.

“There was a whole chorus of condemnation from the usual suspects. The Liberals said it was a made-up issue – then they said it would wreck the economy,” the Prime Minister will say.

They weren’t the only ones outraged at the very idea of paying people the same wage for performing the same work.

“I’m sure you remember the ads on high rotation, all kinds of bizarre comparisons and baseless claims, trying to distract from a very straightforward policy and an issue of simple fairness. We were not deterred — and Australians weren’t fooled.”

Mr Albanese will also launch a new attack against Liberal leader Peter Dutton of seeking to “rip up every new right workers have negotiated and . . . cut every pay rise your members have earned”.

“While there are some companies still fighting to keep these loopholes open so they can undercut wages and conditions, we all know that the biggest threat to fair pay and safe work is not any individual firm; it is the Liberal and National parties,” he will say.

BHP has been a vocal opponent of the Government’s industrial relations reforms, with global boss Mike Henry saying there were no provisions for productivity increases under the legislation, which could cost it an extra $1.3bn per year — or 5000 jobs.

“We’ve always been strong advocates for tying wage increases to productivity increases,’’ he said.

“Our concerns around some of the recent changes are that they flow straight through to cost with no commensurate positive impact on productivity. In fact, they can pull things in the other direction.’’

Other mining giants, including Rio Tinto, Hancock Prospecting and Lynas Rare Earths, have also voiced their opposition to the industrial relations reforms.