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

If I can be a little more forensic, let me remind the House that over the last 10 years real wages in Australia have risen by 16.8 per cent. This compares to the 1.3 per cent growth in the 13 years of the previous Labor government. Using the national accounts statistics, a calculation can be made that the average Australian worker is $127 a week better off as a result of the 10 years of this government. They are $127 a week better off after 10½ years of this government than they would have been compared with the economic performance of the former government because, if the real wage pattern of the previous 13 years had continued over the last 10 years, the average Australian worker would have been $127 a week worse off than they have been. That means that the Australian worker is $6,655 a year better off than they would have been under a Labor government. This is not an illusion; this is real money. This is the real dividend and fruits of this government’s economic management. I am asked about threats posed to this prosperity. It gives a great deal of relevance to the warnings of the Business Council yesterday and it was all summed up extremely well in the Melbourne Herald Sun today by that eminent and respected economic commentator Terry McCrann when he had this to say:

The resources industry is the goose that lays Australia’s golden egg. Kim Beazley is prepared to slaughter it—mindlessly, cynically—

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