George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

We are all winners from a prospering economy, and the Australian economy today is a prospering economy. I recited in answer to the question asked of me by your colleague Senator Watts the economic growth figures, the export growth figures and the consumer confidence figures. But in relation to wages, can I tell you that over the past three years wages growth has been higher than CPI, meaning that there has been growth in real terms. Wages are up by 6.9 per cent since the September quarter of 2013, at a time when inflation, aggregated over that period, has been running at 5.2 per cent. So in terms of average annual growth, wages have risen at 2.2 per cent per year, compared with CPI growth of 1.7 per cent a year. Growth in the CPI in the last three years has itself been much lower than historical trend growth, while wages in the public sector have grown faster than in the private sector. Public sector wages have grown at an average of 2.6 per cent, compared with 2.2 per cent in the private sector. Commonwealth public sector wages growth has been 0.9 per cent per year. Across the states and territories, average annual growth in public sector wages has ranged from 2.4 per cent to 3.4 per cent.

Senator Dastyari, the growth of real wages during this period of coalition government reminds us of the growth in real wages during the previous period of coalition government—under the Howard government—which saw Australia—(Time expired)