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

I thank Senator McKim for the question on the national accounts and his ongoing interest in the economy. I don't think we have ever said, in response to the final part of your question, that wages have been driving inflation. I don't think anyone on this side of the chamber has been saying that at all. On the broader question, there are some challenges in the national accounts that are clear, which makes our economic plan even more important than ever to roll out in relation to some of those issues we've seen in supply chains and in relation to some of the issues around productivity.

On the point about businesses and their profits, we want business to do well. We think it is important that business does well, but we've been on the record a number of times, including as a major part of our election campaign, speaking about the fact that we want to see wages moving. That's why we have done absolutely everything we can since coming to government to make sure that we are supporting sensible and reasonable wage increases, particularly in areas like the minimum wage for working people on the lowest wages in the country and also in the area of aged care, where we're supporting the Fair Work Commission.

We've got some work underway around workplace relations reform, which, as you know, the Senate will have to deal with at some point later this year. We are doing everything we can to make sure that working people are getting a decent pay rise. That has been one of the major failings in our economy over the last 10 years, and it was because the mob over there had wage suppression as a deliberate design feature of their economic architecture. We are breaking down that architecture because we want to see wages grow. (Time expired.)