After days of hyperbole and spin about Budget 2021, Australians wondering about its real impact should ask themselves a simple question: What will the Budget do to get me a pay rise?
 
The answer is nothing.
 
Despite the Budget hoopla, the Budget documents reveal real wages declining over the next two years.
 
Indeed, over eight long years of Coalition rule, real wages have grown at less than 1 per cent a year.
 
Australians can feel this in their hip pockets.
 
They observe it at the cash register on their weekly trip to the supermarket.
 
We should not be surprised.
 
As former Finance Minister Mathias Cormann admitted in 2019, low wages growth is a design feature of Coalition economic policy.
 
For eight long years, Scott Morrison and his colleagues have deliberately kept a lid on wages growth by promoting the shift to insecure, part-time and gig work and maintaining high levels of temporary skilled migration.
 
Scott Morrison wants Australians to work harder so businesses can be more successful. He just doesn’t want workers to share in the benefits.
 
Australians must be scratching their heads and asking themselves how the Government can rack up $1 trillion in debt while their wages are going backwards.
 
Sadly, Josh Frydenberg’s 2021 Budget includes no provision to boost wages growth.
 
There is one sure path to sustainable wage increases — productivity.
 
To lift wages, we need to extract greater value from existing resources, particularly our most valuable resource — our people.
 
Labor’s plan for high productivity starts with skills training.
 
As unlikely as it seems, Australia suffers severe shortages of builders, bricklayers, welders, hairdressers and chefs.
 
Rather than recruiting overseas, we should boost the training sector, with TAFE at its centre, to accredit more Australians for jobs that will provide security and long-term careers.
 
Labor has already created a blueprint for this skills revival.
 
We’ll create an independent adviser to government on skills training — Jobs and Skills Australia.
 
It will work with other levels of government, industry and trade unions to match skills being taught with the actual needs of business.
 
Better training means more jobs, higher wages and meaningful careers for hundreds of thousands of Australians, not just young people, but also those who need to retrain in middle age.
 
Workforce participation is another driver of productivity.
 
A Labor Government will slash the cost of childcare, allowing more parents to work full-time and driving higher workforce participation.
 
We’ll reduce the costs for 95 per cent of families, allowing many thousands of parents to work harder to pursue their aspirations.
 
The increased workforce participation will deliver productivity gains.
 
When I announced Labor’s childcare plan last October, Mr Morrison rejected the idea. He has since announced his own pale imitation of our plan which will help only about a quarter as many families.
 
Another way to boost productivity is by diversifying the economy.
 
Our nation has a great opportunity to use cheaper power bills driven by greater use of renewable energy to revive Australian manufacturing.
 
A Labor Government would create a $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund to leverage private investment into new manufacturing ventures, particularly those involving value adding in areas like resources and agricultural products.
 
Instead of selling bulk commodities, we can lift productivity by moving up the value adding chain. Again, good, secure jobs producing greater value that can lift both profits and wages.
 
In addition, a Labor Government will use the power of government purchasing in areas to help support new manufacturing industries.
 
We know that in coming years state governments will require thousands of new train carriages for new public transport projects in capital cities. We know also that our armed forces have ongoing needs for munitions and other supplies.
 
We should build them here, rather than sourcing them offshore.
 
Backed by the National Reconstruction Fund, we’ll work with business to create local jobs and drive skills development, higher wages and greater business prosperity.
 
Australia needs to get ahead by being smarter — through stronger skills, upsizing new business investment, through micro-economic reform and through research development.
 
We’ve done it before.
 
The Governments of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating opened the Australian economy to the world and made changes that yielded higher wages, better living standards and three decades of continuous economic growth.
 
A Labor Government will do it again.
  
This opinion piece was first published in The Daily Telegraph on Thursday, 13 May 2021.