Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is now official. The Reserve Bank of Australia’s statistics show that mortgage interest payments are now higher under John Howard’s coalition government than they ever were under the Hawke-Keating government. I know it is hard to believe, but that is the reality and it is official from the Reserve Bank of Australia. The official measure, which is debt servicing, shows that mortgage interest rates repayments consume a higher proportion of household disposable income today than when interest rates peaked in 1989. These figures also reveal some startling information about average mortgage interest payments, which are now higher under this government, and for the life of this government—at 7.9 per cent of household income—than they were, at just seven per cent, during the life of the Hawke-Keating government. This is from a government that touts that it wants to keep interest rates low and wants to make these issues—the government that says it has the greatest economic managers.

But it does not end there. There is much more. The Reserve Bank of Australia figures also show that households now shoulder more debt as a proportion of their income, with household debt now equivalent to 150 per cent of household disposable income compared to just 60 per cent in 1989.

Alan Cadman (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Blame the state governments!

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government can blame the states, but that is all they do on these issues. They want to take the credit when interest rates are low, but they do not want to take any responsibility for making housing more unaffordable— (Time expired)