Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Skill shortages—we are dealing with that through 180,000 free-fee TAFE places next year. Low wage growth—we're dealing with that with our secure jobs, better pay bill that they opposed. And somehow they have also stated clearly in the question that wages going up will be a bad thing for the economy. What we had, with a decade of low wage growth, was a handbrake on our economy. We want an economy that works for people, not the other way around. We make no apologies for that. We want to deal with cost-of-living issues by having cheaper child care and medicines, and by lifting wages as well. People's standard of living is based upon revenue and expenditure. If you increase their wages, they're better off. That's the whole idea, but those opposite are opposed to higher wages. Those opposite concede in the question that yes, indeed, we did inherit a bad situation from those opposite.

See this speech in context