While the unions haven't helped the situation here in Australia, yr right is half right when it comes to wages and salaries. My brother who worked in oil and gas says a very recent survey puts Australian engineering remuneration at the top of the world heap - even in the resources industry we are uncompetitive.
But, what's driving the wages/salaries cost is our inflated housing costs and real estate costs in general. The single largest day to day expense for the entire population has been inflated to the moon by the financial sector - it's no surprise then that our banking giants are giants (by "capitalization") even among the world rankings. We have sold our domestic souls to the financiers and are paying the price for it. House prices rise and the lemmings all feel "wealthier" and cheer it on despite the fact that their existence costs have just risen...
Of course, the bureaucratic overhead of employing people is also high - compulsory this and compulsory that - but many countries suffer similarly.
The government is attempting to encourage the nation to exploit our competitive strengths. The reality is that, mineral wealth aside, we have none and mostly because we don't choose to be competitive.
So, the country with one of the lowest population densities has the highest housing costs; with the longest coastline imports most of its seafood; with the most abundant natural resources has the highest energy costs; with one of the largest collective savings and investment accounts needs foreign investment to develop.
We really are a country of contradictions, and not it a good way.