CANBERRA, March 23 (Xinhua) -- Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has promised that his upcoming federal budget in April will "drive wages higher."
Frydenberg told Fairfax Media on Saturday that the budget would focus on boosting economic growth and delivering essential services to Australians but would also increase pay packets.
The Treasurer and Prime Minister Scott Morrison will deliver the federal budget for 2019/20 and are expected to announce the first budget surplus for the first time in a decade.
"Our budget will include measures in it that will drive wages higher," Frydenberg told Fairfax.
"It is going to be a pro-growth agenda and a pro-growth budget and it's going to do that without increasing taxes."
"What you need to do to drive higher wages is more trade, more infrastructure and keep the focus on lower taxes."
"But the focus is on getting policy right, growing the economy, guaranteeing essential services, balancing the books and then the politics will take care of itself."
Delivering the budget will be one of the government's major acts. It represents the governing Liberal-National Party Coalition (LNP)'s chance to make up ground on the opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP), which leads on a two-party preferred basis according to Newspoll, one of the nation's opinion polls, in the lead-up to May's election.
According to opinion polls, the economy is one of the areas where voters believe the LNP has better credentials than the ALP.
Frydenberg also announced on Saturday that the budget would include a 600 million Australian dollar (424.8 million U.S. dollar) funding boost for Australia's corporate regulators.
A new criminal division of the Federal Court will also be established to deal exclusively with cases involving banking executives accused of engaging in institutional misconduct.
It comes after the landmark Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry found that institutional misconduct is commonplace in Australia's financial sector.
"The lessons of the royal commission must be learned," Frydenberg said.
"My message to the financial sector is clear -- it's time to restore a culture of compliance and accountability that puts people before profits."
