Received

Australians are set to learn whether wages have grown in real terms over the past quarter - something that has not happened for three years.

The wage price index, to be released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday, is expected to increase by 0.9 per cent in the June quarter.

The rise could be as high as 1.1 per cent.

This compares to the consumer price index - a measure of the cost of living - which grew by 0.8 per cent in the June quarter.

The May federal budget forecast real wages growth on an annual basis to return by early 2024.

The government has been seeking to boost wages via support for rises for minimum and award wage workers, funding pay rises for aged care staff and making it easier for parents to return to work when they want to.

"A big part of tackling cost-of-living challenges is to help ensure ordinary Australian workers can earn enough to provide for their loved ones and get ahead," Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.

"We understand that securing real wages growth means getting inflation under control, which is why addressing the inflation challenge is the central focus of our government."

NAB economists said they didn't think the wages figure would be enough to shift the thinking in the Reserve Bank away from a pause in rates to a future hike.

But they are forecasting a third quarter wage price index close to 1.5 per cent, taking in the aged care worker pay rise and other turn-of-financial-year adjustments.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese praised business leaders for helping to achieve better wages.

"Wages are growing at their fastest rate in a decade," he told an Ai Group 150th anniversary dinner in Melbourne.

"You have been part of all this, you have helped drive and deliver it."

Wage growth had not come at the expense of job creation, nor had improvements in the skilled migration system undermined Australia jobs, Mr Albanese said.

"The things that really count - growing the economy, creating jobs, lifting living standards, securing our national prosperity and planning for the future - are never zero-sum exercises."

© AAP 2023

Four Australians are missing in waters off Indonesia's Aceh province, with a search and rescue operation under way.

The Australians are Elliot Foote, Steph Weisse, Will Teagle and Jordan Short, who were part of a group in a wooden speedboat in the waters around Sarang Alu and Banyak islands in Aceh Singkil district.

A total of 12 Australian nationals and five Indonesians were travelling to Pinang Island in two boats.

The area is known as a tourist destination with white sand beaches and good waves for surfing.

The boats left North Nias port in Nias island, which located around 150km from Indonesia's Sumatra island on Sunday afternoon and experienced bad weather with very heavy rain during the trip.

Ten of them decided to stay and shelter on Sarang Alu island, while the others continued the trip, Nias Search and Rescue Agency said in a statement on Monday.

The resort on Pinang Island later reported to the agency that the boat with 10 passengers had safely arrived, but the boat that had left earlier had not been seen.

Rescuers were sending at least two rescue boats and a medical boat to the search area.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed it was working closely with Indonesian authorities to support search and rescue efforts.

The department was also providing consular assistance to the four families, a spokeswoman told AAP.

On Monday night, the families of the missing Australians issued a statement saying they were holding out hope they will be found.

"Our hearts are aching at the thought that Elliot, Steph, Will and Jordan are missing at sea. We continue to pray and hold out hope they will be found," it said.

"We'd like to thank the Indonesian authorities and the Australian government for their ongoing assistance while search and rescue efforts continue."

Indonesia is an archipelago with more than 17,000 islands, and ferries and boats are a common form of transportation. With lax safety standards and problems with overcrowding, accidents occur frequently.

In July, an overloaded passenger boat capsized off Indonesia's Sulawesi island, killing 15 people.

In 2018, an overcrowded ferry with about 200 people on board sank in a lake in North Sumatra province, killing 167 people. In one of the country's worst recorded disasters, an overcrowded passenger ship sank in February 1999 with 332 people aboard. Only 20 people survived.

with AAP

© AAP 2023

Australia would grind to a halt without them but essential workers can barely afford to put a roof over their heads.

Early childhood educators, nurses and aged care workers in full-time work can afford as little as one in 100 rentals, according to a survey released on Monday.

The figures show Australia's housing affordability crisis is getting even worse ahead of a national cabinet meeting on Wednesday when rental stress will be a key discussion point for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and state and territory leaders.

Kasy Chambers, executive director of Anglicare Australia which conducted the snapshot, says the numbers help explain why essential industries are facing labour shortages, as workers cannot afford to live in areas where the shortfall is the worst.

"Virtually no part of Australia is affordable for aged care workers, early childhood educators, cleaners, nurses and many other essential workers we rely on," she said.

"They cannot afford to live in their own communities."

The snapshot, taken on March 17, looked at 45,895 rental listings across the country and calculated how many were available for less than 30 per cent of the award rate for 16 categories of essential workers.

It found early childhood educators, hospitality workers and meat packers could only afford 0.9 per cent of listings available across Australia that weekend.

Aged care workers could afford 1.1 per cent of rentals, nurses 1.5 per cent and ambulance drivers 2.4 per cent.

Even in regional Australia, where prices have historically been lower than in urban centres, homes were unaffordable on the whole unless they were so remote jobs were not widely available.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers acknowledged Australia had a huge housing challenge and people needed to be able to live close to their workplaces.

But he said the main issue was supply, which could be solved with the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund.

The proposal stalled in the Senate but the Greens have promised to help pass the legislation if the government offered the states and territories money to cap rents and offer greater rights for tenants.

"The whole motivation of our broad and ambitious agenda for housing is about building more affordable housing," he told reporters in Brisbane.

"We are rolling out billions of dollars in support to build more public housing and more affordable housing at the same time, as we take some of the edge off these high rents that we're seeing in the rental market."

The treasurer also slammed the Greens for failing to support the government's housing proposal.

Ms Chambers said the private housing market had failed those on low incomes, with rental vacancies at a record low 0.8 per cent despite a record high number of homes built over the last 10 years.

"The best way to make rentals more affordable is to build social and affordable homes," she said.

"And we need tax reform to put people in need of homes, not investors, at the centre of our system."

© AAP 2023