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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-06-08 Daily Xml
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Business Confidence

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (14:40): Supplementary: that same report shows that retail confidence is actually the lowest across all industry sectors in the state, and also that labour costs, aka wages, are at record lows.

The PRESIDENT: Question.

The Hon. J.E. HANSON: Does the Treasurer make any link between people's failure to have wage growth and not being able to spend anything at the shop?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:40): No, I don't make that same link, but there is no doubting that—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —the Reserve Bank governor has indicated that nationally the relatively low level of wage growth is an important indicator in terms of national economic recovery and that historically, for the last few years, there has been a low level of wage growth, which has been a product of a number of issues in terms of both low interest growth and inflation right across the board.

I note, as I have previously, that this state government, unlike some other governments, has actually continued to provide reasonable and sensible salary increases for its employees, public servants. We have averaged pay increases of somewhere between 1.5 and 2 per cent. The Hon. Mr Hanson will know that some other governments, Labor and Liberal, have frozen public sector wages over the last 12 months. I am sure the Hon. Mr Hanson would warmly endorse the policies of the current Liberal government in terms of the contrary approach—

The Hon. J.E. Hanson interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order, the Hon. Mr Hanson!

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —adopted by some other governments, both Labor and Liberal, I note, to freeze wages growth. To the extent—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —that the state government can influence wages policy in terms of its more than 100,000 employees, we are if not the biggest certainly one of the couple of biggest—we would be the biggest, I would imagine—employers in this state to accept that we can influence wages policy.

The Hon. J.E. Hanson interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I am sure the Hon. Mr Hanson would warmly endorse the current policies of not only the government but—I was going to say me as Treasurer, but I won't extend it that far, just the current government. If I can use a royal 'we' very, very humbly, the royal 'we', we the government have been relatively generous in terms of our wages policy, but we think sensible in terms of what is a sensible increase for our employees.

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