Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister and his backbench simply do not understand the new interest rate reality; they simply do not get it. We have asked dozens of questions of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer over the past few weeks and it is apparent that they simply have not got a clue about the tremendous financial pressure that is hitting Australian families through rising interest rates, and the problems that is causing for those families—the leading edge of which is seen in those repossession figures that we questioned the Prime Minister about over the last two days.

The truth of the new interest rate reality is this: Australian families are facing record high mortgage repayments under the Howard government, the highest in our history. Every time John Howard, or for that matter Peter Costello, have been asked about the impact of rising interest rates their chant has been to blame the states and then to go on and argue that the solution to this problem must be large-scale land releases. Why are they doing that? It is very simple. They will not admit responsibility for rising inflation and rising interest rates, so they have to blame someone else. They will not deal with the capacity constraints that were so evident in the national accounts yesterday that are putting upward pressure on inflation and interest rates, so they have to find some other scapegoat out there. At the moment it is the state governments.

They have driven up interest rates to the point that Australians are now paying a higher proportion of their household income in mortgage interest repayments than they did under former Prime Minister Paul Keating. That is the new interest rate reality. But they are so out of touch that they have not woken up.

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