Tyron Whitten (WA, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note also. This Labor government has made the 48th Parliament tough sledding if you're looking for truth and answers. It's a closed shop as they drive the country towards an economic cliff. The secrecy around Housing Australia is a huge concern to One Nation, not just from the perspective of young people that Labor have put in harm's way by selling them 95 per cent mortgages before two interest rate rises but from a wider economic perspective, where the huge liabilities from defaulting loans will fall directly on the Australian taxpayer.

Let's start with young people and first home buyers. In November, I asked during question time if Labor had done any modelling on what the default rate of people on the 95 per cent mortgage scheme would be in the event of two rate rises. In typical Labor fashion, I got no answer. I got the inside of a doughnut again. Sadly, we won't have to hold our breath for the modelling. We are now living that scenario, with more rate rises on the horizon. Young Aussies won't have to wait to see the consequences; they will feel them in real time. First home buyers have stretched themselves thin to take out these enormous mortgages on Labor's promises that interest rates were on the way down. They're getting good at saying the opposite of reality—'There's no fuel crisis'—but just like every other economic shock, like when inflation spiked as One Nation said it would or when rates rose as One Nation said they would, Labor is caught completely unaware and unprepared. I always give people the benefit of the doubt—when people get it wrong, it's ignorance, not malice—but when I watch Labor walk first home buyers straight into financial crisis after selling them massive debts to prop up their real Ponzi scheme?

I wrote a question on notice last year asking for the age of the participants in the five per cent deposit scheme. The response I received from the government of transparency deliberately excluded the very scheme I asked for. It is an outrage that Labor is hiding from the public exactly who they have thrown under the bus. When the defaults start, when people are crushed by mortgages that they were sold under false pretences, we will know. So why doesn't Labor come clean now and release this information? The people they have claimed to help have become an inconvenient secret to sweep under the rug.

This has been a complete disaster for first home buyers, but what about the broader economy? Under the scheme, Labor has put the Australian taxpayer on the hook for 15 per cent of mortgages that the government guaranteed to avoid lenders mortgage insurance—full liability uninsured. This is tens of billions of dollars of guarantees backed by only the Australian taxpayer. In the MYEFO, the only liability recognised is a meagre $35.7 million provision. One Nation will be watching this figure like a hawk, as I'm sure the international credit raters will. You might not want to answer our questions, but at some point the chickens will come home to roost on your balance sheet and on your deficits. More liabilities mean a sickly balance sheet. A sickly balance sheet hurts our credit rating. Worse credit ratings mean more expensive borrowing. This is a diabolical situation you've put the Australian people in.

Successive Labor governments have completely forgotten the concept of responsible fiscal management, so now we face down record debts. In the MYEFO, we have the following debts expiring in the next seven years: $40 billion at 0.5 per cent, $87 billion at one per cent, $43 billion at 1.25 per cent, and hundreds of billions at under three per cent. Our 10-year bond rate is now above five per cent, with massive inflation on the horizon under Labor. We're going to be paying over four per cent more on our debt for hundreds of billions of dollars just as the Labor government creates a subprime lending crisis with their ridiculous five per cent deposit scheme, and today we see more appropriation bills full of taxpayer funding for Labor's green fantasy—more debt, more damage to the economy.

Australia's debts are not an abstract concept. These debts need to be repaid. They need to be refinanced, and the interest payments will continue to pile up. Every dollar that goes towards these debts is a dollar taken from the Australian people. It isn't going to fund schools, the police or emergency services, and when Labor runs out of money they will be going after everyday Australians like they do every time to pay for their mistakes. Not answering questions doesn't get us out of this nightmare. Come clean for the people being hit hardest by this economic disaster. But I won't be holding my breath for an answer. The last time I asked Senator Ayres a question, he was more interested in talking to a baby in the gallery.

Question agreed to.