Federal Labor has dismissed as a fairytale budget predictions of how much wages will rise in the next four years.
The Turnbull government's second budget, unveiled on Tuesday night, forecasts wage growth of 3.5 to 3.75 per cent from mid-2019, up from two per cent now.
Labor's workplace spokesman Brendan O'Connor doubts the prediction, given Australians are experiencing a time of the lowest wage growth in a generation.
"It is fanciful. It is fairytale forecasting to suggest that wage growth is going to occur in that way," he told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.
"These are very, very brave assumptions, as a public servant might say."
The idea the budget would return to surplus in four years on the back of such wage growth was also spurious, Mr O'Connor said.
He cited prominent economist Saul Eslake, who also questioned the figures.
"While I think the forecasts for the year ahead are reasonably conservative, the longer-term projections -- that assume we'll get a one to two per cent real wages growth even though unemployment is expected to stay above five per cent -- are perhaps a little aspirational," Mr Eslake told The Australian.
Treasurer Scott Morrison said he had great confidence in his department.
"We actually took down the wage growth forecasts from what we had in December and they remain as I said in line with consensus forecasts in the country," he said during his post-budget address at Parliament House.
The jobless rate is expected to ease to only 5.25 per cent in 2020/21 from 5.9 per cent, while inflation is contained within the Reserve Bank's two to three per cent target.
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