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

We have been seeing real wages growth. Let's not accept the premise of that question, which was that somehow wages have not been growing. They've been growing. They've been growing, of course, in a record-low-inflation environment, a record-low-interest-rate environment.

We also have seen Australians, though, live through a global pandemic, live through the biggest disruption to the global economy since World War II. Fortunately for Australians—unlike those across much of the rest of the world—they've enjoyed policy settings and successes, right across this country, that have kept their jobs safe and secure, that have actually achieved an outcome of seeing more Australians in work today than was the case when we went into the pandemic. Twelve months ago nobody would have thought that was an achievable outcome—to have more Australians in work today than at the time the nation was slipping into recession. But there is absolutely still more to be done, and that's what our budget plans outline—to keep growing jobs, which we can— (Time expired)