Cassandra Fernando (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

FERNANDO () (): My question is to the Treasurer. How is the Albanese Labor government helping ease the cost-of-living pressures and get wages moving again? What other approaches have been rejected?

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

The member for Holt is a champion for working people in her community and our country, and she would have watched with great interest today the release of the new wages data, which came out just a short time ago. What we saw earlier this morning was that the wage price index rose 1.3 per cent in the September quarter this year and 4.0 per cent for the year. This means, as the Prime Minister said, that real wages have grown now for the second consecutive quarter. This was the highest quarterly growth in the 26-year history of the wage price index, and it is the fastest annual growth in wages since 2009. The shadow Treasurer keeps interjecting. He doesn't get to ask a question, so he hopes—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The members for Hume and Deakin will cease interjecting.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to 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.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Treasurer will resume his seat. The Manager of Opposition Business?

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I raise a point of order on relevance. The question was—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer will not interject while I'm hearing the point of order.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question was: what is the government doing to get wages moving and what approaches have been rejected. That is not licence to spend the entirety of his answer going over—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I have not called the Treasurer. Resume your seat. The Manager of Opposition Business is entitled to raise his point of order in silence.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer is a repeat offender and he should be directed to speak about the policies of his own government.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Wright will not use that language. The Leader of the House.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, the point of order raised by the Manager of Opposition Business actually explained why this answer is in order. When the question refers to what policies have been rejected, to then refer to the opposition's policies to keep wages down—to keep them low—as something that we have rejected is exactly what the question is asking the minister to respond to.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer has been going for two minutes. Part of the question did ask what measures have been rejected. I'm going to ask him to return to the question to make sure he's talking about policy, not personality.

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

We reject the deliberate wage stagnation and wage depression which defined a decade of economic mismanagement from those opposite. That's because on this side of the House we see decent wages growth as part of the solution to cost-of-living pressures, not part of the problem, which is what those opposite think.

The sort of rubbish that we hear about wage from those opposite, particularly the shadow Treasurer, might get him a polite little golfer's clap over a sherry at that cookers' convention he went to in London—

Opposition members interjecting—

or the HR Nicholls Society. He was at the HR Nicholls Society on Friday. But we take a completely different approach to those opposite. Getting wages moving again is a key part of our economic plan. We are pleased to see today for the second consecutive quarter that real wages are growing again.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I'm just going to ask the Treasurer to temper his language in future. I have a few welcomes to the House that I would like to do.

Treasurer and the member for O'Connor, when I'm welcoming people to the House, show some courtesy.