John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I do not know what comments of Mr Macfarlane the member is referring to. But let us put that aside and look at the facts. The last time the Labor Party was in office, housing interest rates averaged 12¾ per cent. The housing interest rate after the latest increase will be 8.3 per cent—that is a full 4½ per cent below. Housing interest rates hit 17 per cent. If you double 8.3 you get 16.6, which is still 0.4 below 17 per cent. So the facts speak for themselves.

I imagine that the member for Melbourne has verballed Ian Macfarlane. They verbal just about everybody when they get up in this House. They even verbal some members of the government when they get up in the parliament and ask these questions. If the member for Melbourne wants to have a serious debate about which party has got a better interest rate record, all we say is: bring it on. Look at the last Labor government and compare it with this government. Look at the policies of the Labor Party on display at the moment in industrial relations, which will, according to Econtech, according to the ACCI, drive up inflation and thereby put upward pressure on interest rates.

Labor would take away the industrial relations system we now have. You would have wages break-outs because sectors of the economy could not afford to pay wage increases demanded and received in the more prosperous areas of the economy. You would therefore end up with an extraordinary situation where there would be upward pressure on interest rates, and that would be to the detriment of the entire Australian community. If the member for Melbourne wants to continue to argue that interest rates would be lower under a Labor government than under a coalition government, he is fighting against all of the available evidence and he is about as misguided on the subject as the member for Lilley is.

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