Every day, ordinary Australian men and women have to face the reality that their wages are barely growing. Whilst cost of living pressures rise, workers are more likely to be underemployed or in insecure work and their location is more likely than ever to determine their income.

At the same time, millionaires, billionaires and multinationals continue to get richer. Last year, Australia’s 33 billionaires increased their wealth by $38 billion whilst the growth in wages for hardworking Australians hit record lows.

Thanks to Liberal Governments across the country choosing big business and the top end of town over ordinary Australians, inequality is increasing. The message is clear: working hard is no longer rewarded with a decent wage.

The latest example of this is the NSW Liberal Government’s transparent desire to short-change 9,000 Sydney and NSW trains employees. These are dedicated workers who are seeking basic working conditions and fairer wages to simply support themselves and their families.

For more than six months, the NSW Liberal Government has failed to make a fair and reasonable offer that workers can accept. When the NSW Liberal Government has openly said they look forward to the day when the transport system is driverless, it is easy to see who they are governing for.

It has been left to unions to fight to ensure the men and women they represent earn a decent wage. On Monday, workers will be forced to strike because the government is refusing to provide them with the fair working conditions and wages they deserve. The chaos that will result from this is the doing of the NSW Liberal Party as they failed to deliver the most important function of governing, delivering reliable services for the people of NSW by ensuring our tax dollars deliver decent wages and fair working conditions for our fellow NSW men and women.

Governments can and should help Australians get on their feet and get ahead. The failure of the NSW Liberal Party to deliver for workers they employ is consistent with their out of touch Federal Liberal counterparts. In Canberra, the Turnbull Government continues to fight to protect the trickle-down economics agenda that policymakers worldwide have thrown out. By doing so, they are refusing to help middle Australian’s earn a decent wage and are increasing the level of insecure employment in every community.

This year, the Turnbull Government is continuing to fight to give a $65 billion tax cut to multinationals and the big banks. At the same time, they are refusing to implement reforms that would guarantee a fairer tax system for Australians, such as Labor’s changes to negative gearing, capital gains tax and discretionary trusts. In similar vein, the Turnbull Government is fighting for millionaires to receive a tax cut of $16,400 a year, but stopping Labor’s efforts to protect the penalty rates of hardworking Australians. Tax cuts for millionaires and multinationals will not trickle down and help ordinary Australians.

With inequality growing, workers finding themselves in increasingly casualised and insecure work and wages that are barely growing, it’s no wonder Australians are feeling more left behind than ever under Liberal governments. It’s time the Liberal Party across the country prioritised ordinary Australians wage growth and job security.

Senator Deborah O’Neill is a Labor Senator for NSW, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation.