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

In reply to the member for Macquarie, I can inform the House that, because of the successful economic policies of this government, real wages for Australians have continued to rise. I am very pleased to confirm to the House that real wages have risen by 20.8 per cent since 1996; whereas they fell by 1.8 per cent in the 13 years that preceded the election of this government. In other words, for 13 years under Labor prime ministers and Labor treasurers, real wages were suppressed in this country. Not only were they suppressed but those prime ministers and treasurers actually boasted to the Australian parliament and to the Australian people about how successful they had been in suppressing real wages. If you think that I am in some way exaggerating the figure of 20.8 per cent, let me remind you that it comes from the Statistician. It does not come from me or the Liberal Party; it comes from the independent Commonwealth Statistician.

I noticed in the media this morning that I have an unlikely ally in the case for higher real wages under the Howard government. That unlikely ally is somebody who hopes to become a member of this parliament after the next election, and there is a fair prospect that he will, because he has secured Labor preselection in a very safe Labor seat in the Hunter Valley area. I am talking about Greg Combet. Greg Combet, addressing a union to mark his pending retirement as Secretary of the ACTU, listed his achievements. One of the achievements he listed was a very big increase in real wages over the last 10 years. I thought to myself: ‘Why would Greg Combet be wanting to support John Howard and Peter Costello? Why would Greg Combet be saying to the world that real wages had gone up?’ I was thinking to myself, ‘Has he had a latter-day burst of charity towards some good economic managers, or was he having a swipe at some of his predecessors?’ I think maybe it was a bit of a go at the member for Batman, because he presided over the ACTU during periods of low wages growth; maybe it was a go at Bill Kelty. I seem to remember that Bill Kelty and Greg Combet had slightly different reactions to that ABC program about the 1998 waterfront dispute.

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