Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer remind the House how the Morrison government's economic plan continues to generate more jobs for all Australians, especially young people and those living in rural and regional areas throughout Australia? Is the Treasurer aware of any alternative policies?

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

I thank the member for Bass for her question. The member for Bass is a former mayor of George Town and a farmer and very strong advocate for the people of Bass. The Prime Minister and I recently had the opportunity to go and join the member for Bass at Hillwood Berries in the member's electorate and to meet with the Dornauf family. Hillwood Berries is a family run business that employs 45 people. They are expanding their 40-hectare berry farm to over 50 hectares, with the advantage of the immediate expensing provisions that we put in the budget. It's a project that they said will help create more jobs, and that they would not have undertaken for up to another two years but for that immediate expensing provision.

The economic plan for Australia to create more jobs was laid out in the budget just a couple of weeks ago. That was an economic plan that has already seen half a million jobs be created since last October's budget and Australia be the first of any major advanced economy in the world to see more people employed today than there were at the start of the pandemic. And that plan includes tax cuts for more than 10 million Australian families. That plan includes immediate expensing provisions to allow businesses to write-off new plant, equipment and machinery. That plan also includes a 10-year, $110 billion infrastructure pipeline. That plan also includes $2.7 billion for 170,000 new apprentices. That plan will help create another 250,000 jobs. We saw the unemployment rate come down to 5.5 per cent, even with the end of JobKeeper. It showed the resilience in the Australian labour market, with 33,800 new full-time jobs being created.

While we on this side of the House had faith in the resilience and strength of the labour market and the ability to end JobKeeper, which was an emergency payment, the other side of politics, those of the other side of the House, wanted to keep extending that emergency spending measure. The member for Rankin, using his crystal ball, said that cutting JobKeeper:

… will have diabolical consequences for workers and small businesses, and the jobs that people rely on to feed their loved ones.

The member for Rankin thought there would be famine across Australia with the end of JobKeeper. Then you had the Leader of the Opposition, who said that the end of JobKeeper was the 'only support that was keeping the economic roof from crashing down'. The only thing that came crashing down with the end of JobKeeper was the Leader of the Opposition's economic credibility, or whatever he thought he had. The reality was that it was an emergency payment. It helped save millions of Australian jobs, but it had to come to an end. We held firm and brought it to an end.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, the government's own budget papers forecast a cut to real wages over the next four years. For a manufacturing worker, that amounts to a cut in real wages of about $7,800. How do you rack up $1 trillion of debt yet still cut workers' wages?

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer has the call.

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

I'm surprised to get a question from the member for Chifley about wages when real wages went down in Labor's last year in office. Wages are forecast to grow 1¼ per cent through the year to the June quarter. But, as I said to the House just two weeks ago, the CPI is expected to be 3½ per cent in the June quarter for 2021, the reason being that, in the previous year, we saw the steepest quarterly fall in the CPI since 1931 off the back of particular measures that were introduced in the middle of COVID, like free child care. We saw cheaper rents, and we also saw cheaper petrol. That was the reason why we saw inflation go negative in that year, and that is why we saw those results with respect to real wages. But we will see wages increase to 2¾ per cent over the forecast horizon period of 2024-25.

What we are seeking to do is allow Australians to keep more of their hard earned money. With our tax relief that we have put in the budget, more than 10 million Australians will get tax relief. We will drive policies that will see more Australians in work, that will help bring the unemployment rate lower and that will help drive real wages up. We are helping Australians get more of their hard earned money with the tax relief that we on this side of the House support, but the others on the other side of the House want a bet each way.