Union claims young people voted Labor and now it’s time for payback   

Financial Review
May 20, 2025

Newly appointed Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth is facing union pressure to intervene in a bid to scrap junior rates for more than half a million workers in the retail, fast-food and pharmacy industries to pay back young workers’ support during the election.   

The Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association wrote to the minister on Sunday calling on the Albanese government to back its award application in the Fair Work Commission after claiming that more 18-year-olds voted for Labor this year than any other federal election.


Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth said Labor was committed to engaging with unions and employers.

The demands on Rishworth, who was a former SDA official before she became an MP, come as the ACTU calls on the government to legislate away junior rates if unions lose their case in the commission.

Under the three industry awards, employers only have to pay discounted rates to workers under the age of 21. An 18-year-old is paid 30 per cent below the adult wage while a 19-year-old is paid 20 per cent below it.

SDA national secretary Gerard Dwyer argued 18-year-olds struggled with the same cost of living issues as other adults and should be paid the same.



“18-year-olds voted for the government in unprecedented numbers. Their interests and wellbeing deserve to be addressed,” he said.

“They do not receive a discount on their bills just because they happen to be 18.”

Millennials and Gen Z made up the biggest voting bloc this election but there is no data yet showing 18-year-olds voted in record numbers for Labor.

Flinders University lecturer in government Intifar Chowdhury said her analysis of youth enrolment data and electoral results on May 9 found people aged 18 to 29 – known as Gen Z – “were more likely to vote for the Greens or the independents than for either of the major parties”.

“In fact, Millennials were more likely to have voted for Labor in larger numbers (ages 30-44),” she told The Australian Financial Review.

Rishworth said the government was “committed to delivering what we campaigned on during the election campaign”, citing its support for an above-inflation increase in the minimum wage last week.

“I am committed to engaging with unions and employers on a range of topics,” she said. “It’s still only week one in the job, and I am currently taking advice on a range of topics across my new portfolio.”

The SDA case, backed by the ACTU, would lift minimum wages by up to 42 per cent and is expected to be heard by a full bench at the end of the year.

The Australian Retailers Association has argued the push to abolish junior rates was unaffordable for many retailers and would block incentives to hire young people.

“Without these rates, these young people may otherwise struggle to compete against older, more experienced applicants,” the employer group said.

However, the SDA intends to rely on hiring data since a 2014 ruling when the commission accepted that 20-year-olds in retail should receive the adult wage, although only after their first six months in the job.

Former workplace relations minister Bill Shorten intervened to back the SDA at the time, saying “there was no evidence 20-year-olds working in the retail sector perform work at a lower level to workers aged 21 and above”.

He estimated the potential cost of the increase on the retail industry was $23.6 million a year.

Last year, ACTU secretary Sally McManus urged Labor to legislate to scrap the rates if the SDA loses its case, arguing the rates amounts to age discrimination.

The Greens subsequently backed the push and claimed junior rates “guarantee an endless supply of cheap labour for employers”.