Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is right. Under Howard, Australians are now spending more than ever paying off the interest on their mortgages: 9.1 per cent of their income. This measure has increased by 76 per cent. Interest rates started rising in May 2002 and are 53 per cent more than the peak in September 1989 under Keating. Eight back-to-back interest rate rises have added around $140,000 to the mortgage interest repayments on the average median priced home. This translates to an extra $470 per month. Since coming to power the Howard government has presided over an almost three-fold increase in personal household debt. The total personal debt in Australia has increased from $45.9 billion in January 1996 to a staggering $133.1 billion in November 2006. Insolvency Trustee Service Australia reported that the December 2006 quarter saw a blow-out in bankruptcy numbers in all states except Western Australia. This includes a 30 per cent increase on the corresponding 2005-06 period in New South Wales and an almost 28 per cent increase in Victoria. And what did the Prime Minister do at the last election? He promised to keep interest rates low. I regret to say that there is speculation in the financial press that there is another interest rate rise on the way this year. It is crippling people and families in Western Sydney. They do not believe they have had it so good; they are struggling. But the Prime Minister just does not understand.

In question time today, the acting leader asked the Prime Minister a question about petrol. This was the question: ‘I refer the Prime Minister to his Treasurer’s statement on 11 December 1996 that the government would abandon petrol price surveillance because it would reduce regulation, promote competition and put downward pressure on petrol prices to the benefit of consumers. Can the Prime Minister confirm that the government abandoned price surveillance of petrol on 1 August 1988? Prime Minister, after 11 years, when will the Treasurer’s downward pressure on petrol prices kick in?’

Of course, the question was not answered, and that is not anything new in relation to question time. But that is the point. It has been the Labor members in the House who have been raising the point about price gouging at the petrol pump. We have always argued that the Treasurer should write to the ACCC demanding a closer monitoring of petrol prices and getting behind the retail price of petrol. No-one denies, as petrol is heading for $1.50 per litre, that price gouging exists. Even the Prime Minister and Treasurer now acknowledge, after denying it year on year, that the petrol companies price gouge. They are price gouging.

Under Labor, Kevin Rudd is going to have a petrol cop. We are going to have a petrol prices commissioner, who is going to ensure that petrol gauging does not occur. The honourable member for Fowler, like me, knows what a great boon this is in Western Sydney. Unfortunately, we are very car dependent in Western Sydney. Our transport has been improving, but it has not lessened our dependence on the motor car. So for families in Western Sydney—it does not matter whether they are in Lindsay or McArthur or Fowler or Chifley or Macquarie or Parramatta; it does not matter where they are located—petrol prices hurt. And what does the Prime Minister say? Families have never had it so good. They have never had it so good. I say that families in Western Sydney are struggling. They do not believe that they have had it so good. They want to see some relief. They want some of the pressure taken off them.

You do not take pressure off families in Western Sydney when you have the Prime Minister of the day wanting to spend more than half a million dollars to provide two extra chairs at his private dining room in Parliament House.

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