Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed, I'm more than happy to talk about wages as well as jobs. The two are firmly connected. Real wages have increased in Australia over the past year. Wages price index growth of 1.4 per cent has outpaced inflation of 0.7 per cent. I was pointing out earlier in the answer, in addressing this, that inflation rates have been at incredible lows. With inflation low, unsurprisingly, so too are associated wages rates. But what we have done, and what has achieved the economic strength for Australia, was to achieve record jobs growth which, of course, feeds into wages—(Time expired)