Joe Bullock (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Brandis. Leaving to one side quarterly figures and extrapolations therefrom, can the minister confirm that the annual growth rate has declined from around three per cent in March 2014 to a below trend 2.3 per cent in the year to March 2015?

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

Senator Bullock, you must have different figures from mine. I am advised that growth over the past year was 2.3 per cent, which is up from 1.9 per cent in the last year of the Labor government. I know you asked me to disregard quarterly figures but I think that is a little unrealistic when we have the most recent quarterly figures available to us. The most recent quarterly growth rate in Australia is 0.9 per cent—

Joe Bullock (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, on a point of order: my question was not to compare March 2015 with the last year of the Labor government. My question was to compare the year to March 2015 with the year to March 2014.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the minister of the question. He has one minute and 25 seconds in which to answer.

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

Last year it was 2.3 per cent. The year before, under the Labor government, it was 1.9 per cent. The most recent figure we have, for the last quarter, is that this year it was 0.9 per cent in the first quarter of the year. As an annualised rate that would be 3.6 per cent. As my colleague Senator Cormann reminds me, that means that Australia is among the fastest-growing industrial economies in the world.

Joe Bullock (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister confirm that wages are now growing at 2.3 per cent—the lowest wages growth in almost two decades?

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

Senator Bullock, the state of the labour market is in fact very good. This year, over 110,000 new jobs have been created. Since the election of the Abbott government, more than—

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pause the clock. Senator Moore, on a point of order.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, on a point of order to do with direct relevance: the question was specifically about wages growth and the minister is not moving in that direction at all.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Moore. I will remind the minister of the question. Minister, you have 45 seconds in which to answer.

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

I will reach your question, Senator Bullock, but I thought I ought to point out that overall labour market conditions are very buoyant at the moment, with the rate of growth of job creation quadruple what it was under the Labor government. In relation to the figure for wages growth that you quote, Senator Bullock, that is an actual figure, not a nominal figure. It has to take into account inflation, which is historically very low at the moment. If you were to look at the actual wages growth, the differential as opposed to the nominal figure, I think you would find that wages growth is very healthy at the moment in this country as well.

Joe Bullock (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. With economic growth well below trend and low wages growth, what happened to the Prime Minister's promise of a stronger and more prosperous economy?

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

Well, Senator Bullock, you do not have to take these questions. Do not let them boss you around because whoever wrote that question would not have been someone like you, Senator Bullock. The record is that economic growth has gone from 1.9 per cent in the last year of the Labor government to 2.3 per cent last year. On the basis of the most recent evidence we have, the March quarterly figures, it is heading for 3.6 per cent this year, which is among the largest rates of growth in the industrial economies. Jobs growth is quadruple what it was during the period of the Labor government. Housing construction is booming; business confidence is booming; consumer confidence is booming; retail sales are booming; the NAB business confidence index is booming. This country is going gangbusters under the Abbott government.