Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I think that Australian workers work very hard, and they work very hard for increased wages under this government, unlike its predecessor. Real wages have increased by 16.7 per cent under this government. If there was ever an experiment in restricting wage increases, it occurred under the Australian Labor Party between 1983 and 1996.

Having said that, our country does operate a skilled immigration program and it always has. It did through the fifties and the sixties. There are a lot of people who are in this parliament today because their parents came out here in the fifties and the sixties as skilled immigrants. Skilled immigrants were welcome in Australia in the fifties and the sixties and they will be welcome now. They will be welcome if they can come to this country and bring their skills with them and contribute to the development of the Australian nation. I do not want anybody to run around here and try to impute, as the shadow minister did, that somehow skilled migrants are not welcome in Australia.

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