There is no greater gap in politics than the chasm between the Government’s rhetoric on how the economy is going and the lived experience of Australians as they go about their daily lives.

In supermarkets, shops and petrol stations, Australians see for themselves how the cost of the necessities of life is outpacing growth in their pay packets.

This reality presents itself on the price tags of meat, vegetables and other goods. It ticks over on petrol bowsers as we fill our fuel tanks and is reflected in rising health and childcare costs.

The cost of living is going up – 3.5 per cent year on the most recent figures. But annual growth in wages is only 2.3 per cent a year.

So in real terms, pay is going backwards.

Since the Coalition took office in 2013, wages have increased by 18 per cent. But the price of beef has increased 64 per cent. Fruit and vegetable prices rose 22 per cent, childcare 44 per cent and health costs 33 per cent.

To maintaining living standards, growth in pay needs to keep up with living costs.

But the Morrison Government actually wants low wage growth. In 2019, former finance minister Mathias Cormann said low wage growth was “a deliberate design feature of our economic architecture’’.

Australians deserve something better than a government that deliberately stifles growth in their pay packet.

It is time for a fresh approach that makes our economy more efficient.

If we can deliver more productivity from the economy, businesses will become more profitable and will need more workers. This will lead to higher wages.

The current government has no productivity agenda.

But there are measures a government can take to drive productivity gains – steps a Labor Government will take if we are successful in the election, likely to be held in May.

The first is to increase workforce participation, which is a key objective of Labor’s plan to make childcare more affordable for families.

By reducing the cost of childcare, more parents can work longer hours if they so choose, increasing business output and ensuring the skills of experienced and efficient workers are not lost because they choose to become parents.

Investing in skills is also critical to productivity growth.

For nearly a decade, the skills training system has not had the support it needs, particularly TAFE. There are 70,000 fewer apprenticeships and traineeships today than in 2013.

That’s why we have become over-reliant on overseas workers on temporary work visas.

The closure of international borders because of Covid has exposed the folly of this approach, creating a severe labour shortage that is holding back the strength of the post-Covid recovery.

A Labor Government will rebuild skills training, delivering 465,000 fee free TAFE courses and 20,000 new university places in areas of greatest need.

We’ll train the next generation of builders, electricians and plumbers, as well as nurses and others in the caring industries.

Boosting training will give more Australians the skills they will need to build long, fulfilling careers.

It will also give business the confidence required to plan ahead knowing they can access a skilled workforce.

Building new roads and railway systems also make the nation more productive.

The right infrastructure projects slash the time it takes to move people and goods, which makes businesses more efficient.

However, recent years has seen scarce infrastructure dollars wasted on pork barrelling and rorts, choosing new projects according to their location on the electoral map, rather than their contribution to productivity growth.

We must end the infrastructure rorts and invest public money in ways that lift productivity, including by fixing the National Broadband Network mess.

We must also reinvigorate work between the Commonwealth and states to cut the cost of doing business by reducing red tape.

In previous decades, regulatory reform under Labor and Liberal governments delivered the economy hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of productivity gains.

But the reform project has stalled under the current government, which sidelined the key forum for this work, the Council of Australian Governments.

After nearly a decade in office, there’s no indication the current government will change their approach of suppressing wage growth if they are re-elected.

Labor stands ready with the policies and the energy to lift wages so all Australians have a chance to get ahead.

This opinion piece was first published in the Daily Telegraph on Friday, 4 March 2022.