Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

We have seen wages growth of 0.7 per cent. That has also been the 20-year average we've seen across the economy. That has taken into account the time that the Labor Party were in government and of course the time that the coalition have been in government.

But the key to driving wages growth is getting more people into jobs. When you get more people into jobs you create more competition in the labour market and therefore higher wages growth. Whether it's our tax cuts, our incentives for investment, our JobMaker hiring credit, our support for apprentices or our bringing forward of and new investments in infrastructure—water infrastructure, transport infrastructure and communications infrastructure—these are the policies that are designed to drive jobs right across the country. We saw 178,000 jobs created last month. We've seen 80 per cent of the 1.3 million Australians who either lost their jobs or had their working hours reduced to zero back at work. The key to driving up wages growth is creating more jobs, and that is what our policies are designed to do.

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