Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that interest rates have gone up 13 times on his watch and that the average mortgage holder is now paying $23,000 more every year in repayments?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for her question. What I can confirm is that, when we came to office, inflation had a six in front of it and was rising. It now has a three in front of it. One of the things that we have managed to do, through the responsible economic management that we have put in place, is to get inflation heading down at the same time as we have kept unemployment low and at the same time as we have seen real wages increase over the last two years. That is what a responsible Labor government does—make sure that we understand cost-of-living pressures, make sure that we understand the need to get inflation down, which is why that decrease in inflation led to three interest rate decreases last year.

Of course, we have seen an uptick in inflation, as we have acknowledged. The work continues to do—the Reserve Bank governor made it clear—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister was just talking about interest rates and what's happened to those, which was asked about. I'll take the point of order from the Leader of the Opposition, but it's going to be hard to make it on relevance.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed the Prime Minister was, Mr Speaker. My point of order is on relevance because it was a very straightforward question with two simple data points: have interest rates gone up 13 times, and is the average mortgage holder now paying $23,000 more a year?

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition. As I was explaining, he was referencing one of those data points that you referred to in his answer. So it may not be the answer you like, but he was definitely talking about the interest rates, so, under the standing orders, he's being directly relevant.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After the last meeting of the Reserve Bank, which independently sets interest rates, this is what the governor had to say:

… what's happened over the last six months or so is that private demand has turned out to be much stronger than we had been forecasting …

That is what the Reserve Bank governor had to say very clearly. But what we have done is to make sure as well that we have provided for cost-of-living support, something opposed by those opposite, whose energy for opposing our cost-of-living measures is only exceeded by their energy in fighting each other.