Joint press conference, Canberra

Joint press conference with The Hon Amanda Rishworth MP Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Subjects: wage growth, AAA credit rating, superannuation, productivity reform, rents Amanda Rishworth: Our government has been firmly focused on getting wages moving. And the new data released by the ABS today shows that real wages did grow in the June quarter, and annual nominal wages have now grown above 3 per cent for 4 years under this Labor government.

Now, while real wages did grow in the June quarter, they did decrease over the year to the June quarter. And this is not because wages have been too low, but inflation is still too high. Our government is focused on delivering wage increases for workers because we know it does help with the cost of living.

Now, I want to compare this to the previous Liberal government where annual wages did not grow by more than 3 per cent for the whole 9 years that they were in government. Now, this news comes off the data released last week that shows average weekly earnings for full‑time adults are up more than $300 under this Labor government since we were elected. And last week’s data also showed a new record low of the gender pay gap at 11.3 per cent.

Our government is firmly focused on getting wages moving, and we will continue to do this work. And this is in stark contrast to the Liberal and National Party when they were last in government. Jim Chalmers: Thanks, Amanda.

I’ve got a few issues to run through today just to begin where Amanda left off. We have seen real wages grow in the quarter, but not through the year as Amanda said, because this inflation challenge in our economy persists. It’s worth remembering that the Treasury and the Reserve Bank are forecasting annual real wage growth to return this financial year.

But to have nominal wages growth above 3 per cent for the duration of our government compared to not in any quarter under our predecessors I think gives you a sense of the progress that we are making, making sure that wages growth in our economy is strong and sustainable as we see inflation moderate over time. So real wages were up in the quarter but down through the year not because wages growth was too slow, but because inflation is still too high in our economy.

We don’t just acknowledge that; we’re acting on that. And we’re doing that in the context of a very responsible budget. Overnight Moody’s credit rating agency reaffirmed Australia’s AAA credit rating.

This is the second global ratings agency in the last couple of weeks to give what is a welcome endorsement of the government’s responsible economic management. Whether it was S&P Global a couple of weeks ago or Moody’s overnight, these are welcome and powerful endorsements of the responsible way that this government is going about managing the budget. I’d encourage you to read the Moody’s report because it says the debt ratios at the Commonwealth level remain low.

It found that our fiscal policy has been, ‘adaptive, reflected in the consolidation of pandemic‑era deficits into nearly balanced budgets over a short span of time.’ It says that our fiscal strategy is, ‘supported by expenditure reforms and a record of conservative budgeting.’ It calls out our ambitious tax reforms and says, ‘the government has continued advancing major tax and spending reforms despite a more challenging economic backdrop.’ It says about our economy: ‘Despite facing successive shocks in recent years, Australia’s economy has maintained a relatively stable growth trajectory compared with other advanced economies.’ It also points to the importance of our superannuation system and says that our ‘fiscal strength is further supported by substantial private retirement savings under superannuation funds’.

So Australia is one of only 9 countries with a AAA sovereign credit rating from all 3 major rating agencies. This was a feat not achieved in any year of the Howard‑Costello government. And one of the reasons why we get this tick of approval from ratings agencies is because we have been able to get gross debt down a couple of hundred billion dollars from the trajectory that we inherited from the Liberals and Nationals.

So that was last night. Today we delivered more of our ambitious tax reform agenda with the passage of another tax reform bill through the Senate. And I welcome the passage of our tax legislation because it underpins another important element of our ambitious and broad tax reform agenda.

The legislation passed today will deliver billions of dollars in support for business to encourage productive investment. The legislation delivers on 2 more of the government’s $3.8 billion in new measures that lower taxes for businesses and for start‑ups. The loss carry back measure and making the instant asset write off permanent have now passed the Senate and it’s on its way to becoming law.

And this is a very welcome and very important development as well. And one of the motivations for those tax reforms was the Economic Reform Roundtable, which I hosted next door here a year ago today. Today is the anniversary of the beginning of the Economic Reform Roundtable.

We have delivered more economic reform in the year since the roundtable than in the quarter of a century which preceded it. That roundtable helped shape a budget with the most ambitious tax reforms, the broadest productivity agenda and the most net savings in a generation. In addition to the tax reform package, we’re cutting red tape and regulatory costs by more than $10 billion a year.

We’re boosting GDP through national competition policy. We’ve got these almost $4 billion in tax cuts for businesses and start‑ups. We’ve got all of the work on AI.

We’re abolishing another 500 nuisance tariffs. We’ve passed reforms to the EPBC Act, and we’re strengthening and streamlining the process for foreign investment. Those are just some of the substantial achievements which have come from the Economic Reform Roundtable that we hosted here a year ago today.

Before I throw to your questions, I wanted to acknowledge whether it’s real wages, inflation, productivity, this is a government which acknowledges that we do have very substantial challenges in our economy. We don’t shy away from that. Our economic plan is about addressing inflation, addressing productivity, dealing with this quite extreme global economic uncertainty.

We don’t shy away from that. We don’t lightly dismiss the very substantial and severe challenges in our economy. But I wanted to end by providing some perspective just from the last few weeks because this is too often missed by those who are so determined to talk down our economy, and to talk down Australia and Australians as a consequence.

Just consider the last few weeks: annual headline inflation moderated for the third month in a row. It came in well below the RBA and Treasury forecasts. S&P Global and Moody’s both reaffirmed Australia’s AAA credit rating.

The Reserve Bank downgraded its forecasts for underlying inflation and upgraded its forecasts for growth. The ASIC company data showed a record number of companies created in July. ASIC insolvency data said that there was a double‑digit decline in insolvencies in July compared to the same month last year and a 4 per cent fall compared to 2024–25.

We have a record low gender pay gap that Amanda has played such an important role in. We had the value of first home buyer loans, increase in the June quarter. And we had investor lending for new housing go up to a new record high.

We had consumer confidence this week in the Westpac measure and the ANZ measure both come up. Consumer confidence is higher since the budget where we acknowledged it’s coming off a low base. And so that’s just a bit of perspective.

I know that there is a tendency in this building where it’s our opponents or others to talk down the Australian economy, to talk down Australia and Australians. We have no shortage of challenges, but we’ve got a lot going for us as well, and we need to remember that, too. Journalist: Treasurer, thank you.

Can I put this question to both of you as senior members of the government: how do you assess that the Sydney Swans have handled this incident since the weekend, and what message do you expect from sporting leaders when it comes to the standards of behaviour and attitudes to women? Obviously we’ve seen the comments from the Sydney Swans leadership today. These are extremely disturbing allegations and reports.

We know that there’s an investigation or investigations, which is appropriate. It’s not for us to interfere with those investigations. The most important thing is that these very serious allegations are taken seriously.

That must happen, and we’ll see that unfold in the coming days and weeks. Just adding to that, obviously they are very concerning allegations, and it is incumbent on both the AFL and the Sydney Swans to respond to that. They have responded to that.

But what I would say, and my message would be that every high‑profile sporting person in this country is a role model to children everywhere. And I would hope that every sports person in this country remembers that that comes with responsibility and that they should think about those young children that look up to them every single day because that is critically important and something to keep in the back of all of their minds.

Journalist: Treasurer, we’ve seen earlier in the week One Nation wanting 75 per cent lowering of the excise on tobacco. The Liberals also have been saying that a lowering ought to help as well. Now we’ve seen New South Wales Premier Chris Minns also saying that One Nation is probably on the right track in, like, lessening tobacco‑related crime.

Given that there are now calls in your own party, from other state leaders that the excise needs to come down, does that have any sort of weight in, you know, the calls coming from all these different areas? Well, I think as Chris himself said, that’s a point that he’s made before. That’s not a new contribution he’s made today.

We’re aware of his views and we’ve seen the reports from the other parties as well. I can only repeat what I’ve said on all of the other occasions that I’ve been asked. We know that this is a very serious issue.

We don’t lightly dismiss the problem of illicit tobacco in our communities and around our country. The government’s focus, the government’s priority, the federal government, is providing more than $350 million to focus on what is our main concern around the law and order, compliance and enforcement issues. We have seen some good progress in recent times.

We do welcome and appreciate the efforts of the police and the other authorities in the raids and the busts that we’ve seen in recent times. But we’re not on top of this problem yet, and that’s why that enforcement funding and resources is so important. Journalist: Treasurer, there’s a strange sort of a text message that appears to have come from Aus Labor, a text purporting to be from you claiming that Andrew Bragg and Pauline Hanson want to scrap super and are seeking donations to the party to fight that.

Pauline Hanson says – I won’t fully quote her here – but ‘you’re full of–’, I can imagine you can guess the next word, and that she doesn’t support scrapping super entirely. Is this just a scare campaign, and is Labor here exposing the fact that they are worried about One Nation and some of its more populist policies, be it early access to super in certain conditions or, for example, reducing the exercise on tobacco?

No, I’m genuinely worried about the future of superannuation in the hands of the Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation. The leader of One Nation was asked on Sunday whether she agreed with what Andrew Bragg had said on behalf of the Liberal Party the week before, when he made comments against the current system of universal superannuation. She said there’s a lot in that.

She said the system is broken. And so that’s what I’m referring to when I say, none of these 3 parties support superannuation because none of them really support workers. And this is the biggest threat to compulsory superannuation in the 4 decades that it has existed.

Now, if any combination of Liberals, Nationals or One Nation win at the next election, Australians’ superannuation savings are not safe, and workers will be worse off as a consequence. They do not support universal superannuation and preservation at its core. They’ve made that very clear, not just in the last week.

Tim Wilson has made that clear on a number of occasions as well. And so we are well within our rights to point out to the Australian people and particularly to Australian workers that the Liberals, One Nation and the Nationals share a very dangerous and very divisive anti‑worker, anti‑super ideology and Australian workers would pay a hefty price for that if any combination or coalition of them were to win the next election.

Journalist: Treasurer, there’s been a lot of talk about rents the last couple of days. The unions were out this morning saying they want a national two‑year rental standard. They’re also concerned about rent gouging, pointing to too much demand and not enough supply in the market pushing rents higher, people can’t afford to work anywhere they live.

Are you open to this idea that the ACTU has put forward, and they also want one in 10 new builds to be public housing? Are you open to those ideas? Well, we’ve already got our own plans to make sure that as we build more homes in our communities that a portion of that is social and affordable homes.

We’ve got almost $50 billion of investment to make sure we’re building more homes broadly, but as part of that, more social and affordable homes as well. The best way to put downward pressure on rents over time is to build more homes, and also to help more renters become first home buyers, which is, you know, really one of the fundamental objectives of our ambitious tax reform package – to make it easier for people to buy their first home.

Now, you’ve asked me about rents, and it’s given me an opportunity to make a couple of other really important points because I think there has been a lot of irresponsible and unnecessary scaremongering when it comes to the impact of the government’s tax reforms on rents. We’ve seen stories citing Ray White, Cotality and NAB, and I wanted to make this really clear: this morning Ray White themselves couldn’t have been more clear when they said – and I’m quoting – ‘we don’t do forecasts for rents’.

NAB yesterday was similarly clear – I’m quoting them again – ‘this was not a forecast. It is important to note that we do not forecast rental yields’. Tim Lawless from Cotality said – and I’m quoting Tim – ‘any prediction that rents will actually rise 30 per cent even over 2 years doesn’t stack up.

We don’t think rents could possibly rise by 30 per cent in 2 years’. The last point I would make, Ellen, is about the story about rents in my own electorate. If you look at the story that was in The Australian today, there’s a graph about rents in my electorate that shows median rents month on month nationally and in Rankin from mid '22 to July 2026.

And the data in that graph is from Cotality that I mentioned earlier. What that graph shows is that growth in the median rent on that graph has actually moderated since the budget. By our reading of the graph published in that newspaper, in the 2 months before the budget, median rent grew about 1.6 per cent in Rankin and a bit over 1 per cent nationally.

In the 2 months after the budget, median rent increased 1 per cent in Rankin and a bit under 1 per cent nationally. So growth in rents in that graph in those figures moderated when you compare after the budget to before the budget. So really I just cite all of that, and thank you for your patience.

I really just cite all of that to remind people that we need some perspective here, and unfortunately in some quarters that perspective has been missing. Journalist: Just on wages – and this one is to both of you – you’ve cited criticism and the fact that you claim real wage growth. We don’t claim that, it’s quarterly real wage growth.

Journalist: But the cost of living is continuing to climb, do you really think Australians are better off right now? Well, of course we have acknowledged, the Treasurer has acknowledged, our government has acknowledged, time and time again, that we acknowledge that Australians are doing it tough. And we are looking at every single lever we can pull to support them.

And that is why our focus has been on getting wages moving again. Let’s not forget that the Liberal Party used to brag about keeping downward pressure on wages as part of their economic plan. They did not see wage growth as critically important to Australian workers.

So we are not saying job done here. But what we are saying is we are looking at ways that we can support people by looking at higher wages, and we are seeing some of those results in the nominal wage growth. We’ve also recognised that inflation is still too high.

And once again we are looking at how we address that. But our focus is on growing wages. And what I’ve regularly pointed out is the alternative – a Liberal and National party that have said that they don’t support wage rises, and Pauline Hanson failing time and time again to back in a wage rise for our lowest paid workers.

So that’s the comparison here. We will keep working to keep supporting Australian workers. There’s still work to be done, and we’re up for it.

Journalist: Just a follow‑up to Claire’s question: how much have you raised from that super text? I don’t know. Journalist: On GST, the PC report on Friday made clear that under the current arrangements if there’s a bushfire in New South Wales, it will get less than it should have and Western Australia will make money on that.

The government’s position is no change. How is that tenable given you’ve got your own economic adviser saying it is absolutely perverse? Well, we’ve made it really clear that we don’t intend to respond in detail to the specifics of an interim report.

There’s a final report later in the year. We’ve made it equally clear that from our point of view a fair go for WA is non‑negotiable, recognising the contribution that they make to our economy. Journalist: That’s not a fair go, though, is it?

Surely given the current structure where there’s a fire in New South Wales and WA makes money, that cannot be tenable from a public policy position surely? You’re asking me about very specific elements of an interim report, and we’ve made it clear, it’s an interim report only. It’s a consequence of the legislation passed by Scott Morrison in 2018, which you, to your credit, have written extensively about.

We’re not going to go through it page by page, and respond to all of the detail in the interim report except to say a fair go for WA is very, very important to us. And we will consider the final report when it’s delivered to us later in the year. Journalist: The political lines are pretty well drawn on super, and I take account of your earlier answer to Claire’s question.

But on the substance of the policy, are the early release rules right? Should there be more flexibility, for example, for a family in one of your electorates who might be having trouble repaying their mortgage? Well, I think the early release arrangements for superannuation are broadly right.

And that’s because they recognise that people can access their super early at times of genuine hardship. These are longstanding elements of the system. They’re limited and focused for good reason because preservation in the superannuation system is absolutely key for ensuring that people have got decent retirement incomes.

Now, the idea that the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation are only quibbling about some small element of superannuation I think is wrong. The leader of One Nation said the system is broken. Tim Wilson has said that its economic insanity.

Andrew Bragg equated super for younger workers with super for cats and dogs. And so it’s really clear just what they really think about superannuation. So there are arrangements in place right now.

I consider them appropriate for situations of genuine hardship. But preservation is the key. Preservation is at risk here from this dangerous and divisive combination of those 3 parties.

Journalist: Just a quick one: did you weaken your own argument on super when you [inaudible] Div 296 [inaudible] last 10 years, Morrison had a crack in 2016. How do you reconcile that with your claim to be guardian of the super system? Well, first of all, Scott Morrison did change the arrangements – Journalist: Yes, that’s right.

In 2016. Yeah. And we’ve changed – Journalist: We were told that was the end of it, and then you had another crack.

I think we’re on the public record probably hundreds of times explaining why that change is necessary to make the superannuation system sustainable, and at the same time to boost superannuation for low‑income earners by the low‑income super tax offset our opponents voted against. So we’re for a fairer superannuation system from top to bottom. The legislation that we passed last year is an important part of our efforts.

But let me be really clear in case I haven’t been clear enough: we back superannuation because we back workers. The Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation don’t support super because they only pretend to support workers. They do share an anti‑super agenda.

We will defend superannuation until our last breath because we know how important it is for the economic security and retirement incomes of millions of Australians who work so hard for a living and deserve some dignity when they finish up.