ACTU Secretary Sally McManus has yet again shown she has no regard for the facts.

In today’s Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Ms McManus states in an opinion piece;

“About 2.3 million Australians earn the minimum wage of $34,980 a year ($17.70 an hour), some 450,000 more people than two years ago.”

This is wrong.

Here are the facts.

·       2.3 million workers are paid according to the relevant award rate. This includes a number of occupations that are paid a range of pay rates above the national minimum wage rate.

·       Contrary to Ms McManus’ assertion, 196,300 workers are paid at the national minimum wage rate. This represents 1.9 per cent of all workers in Australia.

Ms McManus was almost 2.1 million workers off the mark.

The ACTU are making conscious decisions to deliberately mislead Australians when facts become inconvenient.  That should come as no surprise. Ms McManus was appointed as Secretary of the ACTU as a reward for orchestrating the Mediscare campaign – a campaign based on a lie.

The ACTU has said following the law is optional – now it seems telling the truth is too.