Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Minchin, the Minister representing the Prime Minister. Is the minister aware that Australians now owe a total of $40.8 billion on credit cards? Doesn’t this mean an average of $3,000 is owed on every one of the 13½ million credit cards in Australia? Is the minister further aware that, since interest rates went up for the ninth time in a row last month, banks like Westpac, NAB, BankWest and St George have increased credit card rates by up to 1.25 percentage points—that is, 1.25 per cent in just one month? If interest rates keep going up, how will families ever be able to pay off the $3,000 they already owe on each of their credit cards and meet their mortgage repayments? Doesn’t this again show why families are angry with the Howard government, which broke its promise to them that it would ‘keep interest rates at record lows’?

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

This is the weekly trailing out of a tired old interest rates question with a false premise. The false premise, of course, is what we said to the Australian people at the last election. We said to the Australian people at the last election that they could be confident that a coalition government would ensure that interest rates were lower than they would be under a Labor government. We have honoured that pledge. It remains astounding that interest rates today are lower than they ever were in the 13 years of the Labor government.

Interest rates are lower today than they were when we came into government. The average mortgage interest rate under us is much lower than it ever was under the last Labor government. There is an obvious answer as to why that is. It is the responsible economic management of this government which has kept interest rates low, unlike that of the previous Labor government, which lost control of the economy and brought on the recession we had to have and the 17 per cent interest rates that threw people out of their houses and their businesses and threw hundreds of thousands of people onto the dole. It was a disgraceful period of government.

We are proud of our record in government of keeping interest rates much lower than they were under the previous Labor government. We will again go to the people pledging honestly that they can be sure that under a coalition government interest rates will be lower than they ever would be under a Labor government.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Five interest rate increases in a row since the last election! Keeping interest rates low—that was your promise. Minister, given an extra $1,200 is being put onto every credit card in Australia every month, how will families ever be able to afford to pay off their credit cards, cope with rising childcare, grocery and petrol prices, and deal with the government’s attack on their working conditions? Is the Prime Minister really so out of touch that he thinks this shows ‘working families in Australia have never been better off’ and keeping interest rates at record lows?

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

Under this government, real wages have risen 20 per cent in real terms. How much did they rise under the Labor government? They did not rise at all in 13 years; there was no increase in real wages. Under us they have gone up 20 per cent. Inflation is contained. Unemployment is at record lows. Australians are in jobs. They have decided that, with the confidence they have in our economic management, they can afford to borrow money and get the things that they want. And they can afford to do so because real wages are rising and they have got jobs. Under our government that will continue to be the case, unlike if you elect a Labor government, when we will see a return to the bad old days of businesses closing, interest rates rising, people out of jobs. We do not want that for the Australian people. We urge the Australian people, when they face the choice in the next few months, to vote for us and to vote for the continuity of jobs, low inflation and low interest rates.