Senator CORMANN (Western Australia—Leader of the Government in the Senate, Minister for Finance, Special Minister of State and Vice-President of the Executive Council) (14:45): I know that the Labor Party these days is into the Soviet-style planned economy, where you centrally prescribe everything in the economy, but let me tell you: that is not the way we work. We want to give business the best possible opportunity to be successful so they can hire more Australians and pay them better wages. And guess what: our plan is actually working. More than 420,000 new jobs were created in the last 12 months. And guess what: wages growth is picking up, as you would expect. Yes, there's been a period of lower global growth, there's been a period of massive transition— The PRESIDENT: Senator Cormann, please resume your seat. Senator McAllister, on a point of order? Senator McAllister: The point of order goes to relevance. The minister was asked very directly around the rate of wage increase that would be guaranteed by the coalition, and he is refusing to answer. The PRESIDENT: I think the minister is relevant. The minister can't be instructed how to answer the question, as long as he is directly relevant to parts or all of the question asked. I call the minister. Senator CORMANN: I'm happy to confirm for Senator McAllister that, on the coalition side, we don't subscribe to the socialist planned economy model, where the government centrally prescribes what the wages in the economy should be. We happen to believe, if you help business be more successful, they'll hire more people and they'll have to pay them more in wages because there is more competition for workers. (Time expired) The PRESIDENT: Senator Chisholm, a final supplementary question.