Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

What we do know is that the working families that the senator purports to represent would be in much worse condition if they were paying 17 per cent on their mortgages—as they were doing under the Labor Party. Senator Webber cannot get away from the fact that interest rates under us are lower today than they ever were in 13 years of Labor; interest rates today are lower than they ever were under the Labor Party in government. That is the most extraordinary statistic, and it is a fact that they are lower now than they were when we came into office.

What we promised the Australian people was that interest rates would be lower under us than they would be under a Labor government; we will reassert that at this election. We maintain that, based on the record of the Labor Party, the Australian people will believe us again when we say that interest rates will be lower under us than they will be under the Labor Party. When they understand the full purport of the Labor Party’s ACTU-driven industrial relations policy, the Australian people will know that the advent of a Labor government—mismanaging money, as did former Labor governments; mismanaging money, as do state Labor governments—will result in higher inflation and inevitably higher interest rates.