Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

I particularly love getting a question from Labor on interest rates. They have absolutely no sense of irony. I remind senators once again that the highest interest rates there have ever been under the coalition government are still lower than they were at the lowest point under the last Labor government. What do the Australian Labor Party say to those people who struggled under 17 per cent interest rates when they were in power? What do they say to the two million people who were unemployed? It is almost a trifecta: you have interest rates out of control, nobody has a job and you have exploding inflation. They try to make some sort of a comparison, but I have to say that in the last 11 years of government we have been extremely effective with housing policy. We introduced the first home owners grant. Perhaps I can share with this place the interesting anecdote today of a staffer who has just purchased her first home in the Australian Capital Territory. She lives in the ACT and was delighted to receive the $7,000 first home owners grant. However, she was just a tad disappointed to be hit for $11,000 in stamp duty by Mr Stanhope.