Labor leader Bill Shorten has taken a shot at the big business sector for deliberately keeping worker wages low.
Mr Shorten told the National Press Club in his first major speech of the year on Tuesday that household bills were rising while wages were flat.
"Our economy has grown since the global financial crisis, workers are more productive than ever, company profits went up 20 per cent last year alone - so why are big companies keeping workers' wages low?" Mr Shorten asked.
"It's the same reason that they're farming people out to labour hire companies, the same reason that they try to turn every job they can into a casual job, the same reason that CEOs can put up their own pay and up again - it is because they can."
He said it was time to "push big companies to pay a fair day's wage for a fair day's work".
"If we don't demand a better deal and greater security for working Australians, then it just won't happen."
Mr Shorten added that enterprise bargaining was on "life support" and needed reform to be a driver of wages growth and productivity.
Labor would restore Sunday penalty rates, crack down on the exploitation of labour hire and put the "bargaining" back into enterprise bargaining, as well as lead a new national push to close the gender pay gap, he said.
The opposition leader reiterated Labor's stance against the government's planned second tranche of corporate tax cuts.
"For the life of me I do not see how backing up a big truck full of taxpayer funds into the pockets of multinationals in the form of a tax cut is going to help ordinary people," Mr Shorten said.
