Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

TAYLOR () (): My question is to the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. I refer to his comments in the media last week that the RBA governor was talking 'rubbish'. Will the minister apologise for these comments?

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hume knows he is misquoting me, but he has got form on misquoting people. I was asked about wages policy, and it was put to me that the Reserve Bank governor had said that, if wages increase too much, that's bad for the economy. The point that I made is that the problem in Australia isn't that wages are increasing too fast; it's that they haven't increased enough over the last 10 years. They have been frozen. Furthermore, the laws which Labor has just passed, with the support of the Senate, will for the first time in 10 years give feminised industries and low-paid workers a chance of getting wage rises.

What amazes me is that, when people are doing it hard in this country, as so many industries have for so long, the opposition are not only not repentant for their poor wages policy over the last 10 years; they haven't learned the lesson of the last election.