Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

that if he chirps enough that will be a substitute for a question. I heard him earlier today before question time. He was out there in the courtyard talking about real wages. It hasn't dawned on the shadow Treasurer that real wages were falling 3.4 per cent in the last quarter that they were in office—3.4 per cent. The figure is now 1.4 per cent in annual terms, which is still too much of a real wages fall, but we are closing the gap that we inherited from those opposite. There was a 3.4 per cent real wages fall under them; it was 1.4 per cent in the numbers today, but it was the second consecutive quarter of real wages growth on our watch.

This isn't accidental. Wages growth is a deliberate design feature of our economic plan. It's why we supported an increase to the minimum wage; it's why we supported decent pay for aged-care workers, and that was recognised in today's release. Those opposite spent the best part of a decade pursuing a policy of deliberate wage stagnation and deliberate wage suppression.

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