John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

If you applied the average interest rate of the Labor years—that is, 12¾ per cent—it would be over $2,300 a month. That is being charitable, because it so happens that, in 1989, interest rates hit the notorious level of 17 per cent, and if you applied that to today’s loan it would be $3,100 a month. So it is now $1,430. Using the opposition’s logic, charitably speaking, if their average interest rate had obtained, it would be $2,300; but, if the interest rate of 1989 had obtained, it would in fact be $3,100 a month.

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