Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

I decided to have a look at the history of interest rates since 1971, because we hear a lot about history from this government. They are constantly in the blame game: blaming the previous federal government after almost 11 long years, blaming state governments, blaming bananas, blaming anything else—but not blaming the government of the day. This is a government that is very fond of claiming credit for good news but distancing itself from bad news. They blame someone else when the going gets tough. They will not take responsibility. So I went back to 1971 and I got the contract for the 30-year fixed-rate conventional home mortgage rates quarterly statistics. Do know what year we experienced the highest mortgage rates in this country? It was in October 1981. That is a fair while ago—