The good news is real wages are finally going up – and not by so much that the Reserve Bank should be worried that it needs to once again raise interest rates.

Last September there was a big 1.3% jump in wages. If you had just looked at that period in isolation, you would have thought the mythical wage breakout was about to occur and the RBA would be off to the races raising rates higher and higher.

But in December overall wages grew by a much more moderate 0.95% and private-sector wages rose just 0.88%.

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The reason wage growth in December was even that large was due to the biggest jump in public-sector wages since 2008.

But even that 1.3% quarterly increase should not be all the surprising or concerning for the RBA, given over the past three years public-sector wages have lagged behind that of the private sector.

After years of enduring arbitrary wage caps, public-sector workers are seeking some redress.

But while there has been a jump, in a majority of states and territories, the wage growth in the public sector lags well behind – especially in South Australia and the ACT with its mostly commonwealth public servants:

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