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

There is no plan to drive down Australian wages. It is very interesting that I am asked this question today, when the national accounts for the June quarter show that wages under this government, since March of 1996, have risen by 16.4 per cent in real terms. The only time in recent recorded history that wages have been driven down was the period between March 1983 and March 1996, when the Statistician records that real wages actually fell by 0.2 per cent.

As to the particulars of that individual case, I am not personally aware of it. I do not know who that man’s employer was; it may even have been a state government agency.

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