Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Minchin. Is the minister aware that working families around Australia now spend nearly one dollar out of every three that they earn on home loan repayments? Aren’t first homebuyers in Perth spending 37 per cent of their income trying to pay off their mortgages? Isn’t this the highest proportion of income that working families have ever had to spend paying off a home loan? What impact does the minister think paying another $50 a month will have on these families that are already struggling to meet their mortgage repayments? Why should working families believe anything that the government says about housing affordability when the government has broken its promise to them to ‘keep interest rates at record lows’?