Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Treasurer, Senator Gallagher. Minister, what modelling has been undertaken by Treasury into how much workplace productivity and real wages will increase as a result of the government's industrial relations legislation?

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Cash for the question. As the senator would know, Treasury does a range of detailed modelling on the economy, and all of that is presented in the budget. It's updated regularly to factor in changing economic conditions as well as policy decisions over time. The legislation—we went through this at estimates—that this chamber will hopefully debate before the end of the year hasn't been settled yet, so the modelling that the Treasury has done and the forecasts on wages assumptions et cetera have not taken into consideration the secure jobs, better pay bill because it hasn't been settled.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cash, first supplementary?

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

By approximately how much will real wages increase as a result of the government's industrial relations changes?

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government has made no secret about the fact that we want to get wages moving again after almost a decade of stagnant wages. We want to see wages grow in a responsible way. We're seeing early signs of that with the wage price index that was released last week, I think, which had wages increasing by 3.1 per cent. But you can see the wages forecasts, the wage price index forecasts that are factored into the budget in one of the budget books, and they have wages growing at 3¾ per cent in 2022-23, 3¾ per cent in 2023-24 and in 24-25 at 3¼ per cent.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cash, second supplementary?

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, given your government's budget papers show real wages are declining and productivity is decreasing, when will Australians see an increase in their real wages and which Australians will see an increase in their real wages?

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Again, if I can just go through the record of what happened under the previous government—

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You're not directly relevant!

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, there's some context. I know it's an uncomfortable truth about what happened to wages because it was a deliberate design feature of your economic architecture to keep wages low. We are dealing with an inflation challenge at the moment, and no-one is pretending that wages should be growing at the pace of inflation. But we are seeing wages growth. We are seeing wages growth unlike when we look at what happened—2.2 per cent a year under the previous government—and we have already seen the minimum wage case deliver over five per cent. We've seen that for the aged-care workers and for all of the low-income workers that you fought against ever getting a pay rise—remember your submission had the benefits of low-paid work in it. We want to see low-income workers get a pay rise, and that's what they'll get under this government and under the laws that we're going to pass. (Time expired)