John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

In answer to the honourable member’s question, I thought the news conference delivered by my colleague on Saturday was a very good news conference. He is, along with other members of this government, a great believer in wage increases. Let me tell the Leader of the Opposition what I think is a good wage increase, not wage cut. A good wage increase is about 16.8 per cent in real terms over 10 years. That is a very good one. I will tell you what is a bad real wage increase: 1.3 per cent over 13 years, because that is the real comparison. Can I finally say—again—that Mr de Bruyn is a union figure for whom I have considerable respect. I think he is a very good man. We do not agree on everything, but he is a very fair man and that is why he was disturbed by the way in which some of the Leader of the Opposition’s frontbench colleagues were distorting the truth.

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