Kerry Bartlett (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that real wages are continuing to grow? How much have they grown since 1996? Is the Prime Minister aware of any threats to continued real wage growth in Australia?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to 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.

Government Member:

Who was the hero?

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

The hero of that was, of course, Greg Combet. And there was the person who thought he had been made to look a bit of a village idiot in that program. He did not like his appearance. We all have problems when our appearances are depicted, and we should not be too sensitive about that. But I thought it was a very interesting revelation: here was Greg Combet, right on song, saying, ‘Yes, real wages have risen over the last 10 years.’ In fact, if you look at the last 10 years, they have been very good years for the Australian people. They have been good years for the battlers, they have been good years for low-income earners, but they have been increasingly bad years for union bosses because most of the predictions of union bosses have not come to fruition, and that of course is why the union bosses are so keen to reverse the drift of power away from them and to return the government of this country to those whom they believe it should belong—that is, themselves.

When I am asked this question about real wages growth, I am reminded about the importance of productivity. I listened to an interview on AM this morning where the Leader of the Opposition struggled rather pitifully to get on top of the concepts of productivity. Let me tell the Leader of the Opposition that productivity, loosely defined, is output per worker. He did not seem to understand that. He did not seem to know that, in the last national accounts, increases in productivity had been recorded. All he could do was to recite a bit of a mantra about how there was a productivity rise in the 1990s, that there was a long-term productivity trend of 2.3 per cent, that it had fallen away, and that we were all ruined if we did not elect a Labor government. I wondered where I had heard that before. I picked up my now well-thumbed copy of the dirty tricks manual issued by the ACTU, and I looked under ‘productivity’. These words came echoing back to me; this is what it had to say:

The statistics reveal productivity growth has fallen. Prior to the 1983 accord, productivity was 2.3 per cent. The Labor enterprise bargaining reform facilitated a productivity peak at an annual rate of 3.2 per cent, in contrast to the first Labor cycle. Since Howard’s first workplace reform, productivity has fallen back to 2.3 per cent.

That is exactly what the Leader of the Opposition was arguing this morning. When he was asked by the interviewer whether he had read the national accounts, he did not answer the question and, when he was asked whether he understood them, he did not answer the question.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Swan interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lilley is warned!

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

Any fair-minded person listening to that interview—

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Swan interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lilley will remove himself under standing order 94(a).

The member for Lilley then left the chamber.

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

would conclude that the Leader of the Opposition does not know the first thing about productivity. He has made productivity the centrepiece of his economic attack on the government, but today we have revealed statistics that have destroyed his attack on the social policies of the government, and this morning, out of his own mouth, he destroyed his own attack on the economic policies of the government.