Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

If there is one thing I will back this government to the hilt on, it is its economic credentials—because you have absolutely none. I just want to run something past you. I think it is fair to say, ‘Interest rates were trending down and interest rates were trending up,’ but what you have to take into account, good gentlemen and ladies on the other side, is the differential of where Australia was with the US under this government and where Australia was with the US under your government, because that is what it is really all about: trends.

In 1990, the interest rate in Australia was 17 per cent, which basically meant that every five years you had to be able to get a return almost equivalent to the value of your business. As an accountant, I can tell you that is virtually impossible. It sends people broke. The US interest rate was 8.25 per cent. There is the differential: more than twice the US interest rate. In 2006, the interest rate in Australia is six per cent and the interest rate in the US is 5.25 per cent. That is a clear indication of a government that has its hands on the reins, as opposed to one that is full of opprobrium, probably half tanked and completely off the rails. It might not be unique: maybe there was just a glitch in the system and, at a certain point in time, the Labor Party had no idea!

I thought back on the history of it, on my early recollection—I was quite young at the time—of someone called Khemlani. I remember that form of Labor Party management, when they would actually go out to get loan sharks. You had the best one of the lot. You had one from Pakistan who was going to refinance Australia! That is the best form of loan shark in the world. You were going to hock the whole of Australia, but you managed to hock the whole of Australia later on when you built up $96 billion on our nation’s credit card—which, of course, this government had to repay.

The Labor Party were the brilliant triple bottom liners: high inflation, high unemployment and high interest rates. You could do the lot. You are incredible. And the wealth of experience! The Mark Latham statements—his economic credentials and where he was leading the nation—in the Latham Diaries have to be read to be believed. There was the black hole that Paul Keating left behind and the ‘recession we had to have’. Do you know how much angst that cost when people started going broke, and how the Labor Party were absolutely despised because people were going out of business? They were going broke. They were having to sell up. Their contracts were falling over. They could not meet their payments at the bank. That created misery in families throughout this nation. There was that fateful moment when the Prime Minister of this nation stood up and said: ‘This is the recession we had to have. This is what the Labor government has delivered to you.’ Whether you go back to Whitlam, whether you look at Keating, whether you look at Hawke or whether you look at Latham, your form is incredible. Your form is absolutely without merit.

You were talking about prices—the repayment prices for home loans. That is because the price of real estate in this nation has gone through the roof, based on the value of land. People have confidence in the economy. The fact is that people are wealthier now. They have greater wealth than they have ever had before. The value of their assets is far in excess of what they have ever had before. That is why they keep re-electing the coalition government—because they have become wealthier.

Interest rates are going up. I have to inform you that quite a few Australians have been prudent enough to lock in their interest rates. They have been locking in their interest rates at some of the lowest rates in the history of this nation. The reason they can do that is that the hands of the coalition government on the reins are steady. They know what they are up to. The first thing they did, like any astute housewife, was to pay off the unnecessary debt—to pay off the $96 billion that a wayward, out of control government had racked up on the nation’s credit card. They are major reasons why this government— (Time expired)