Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I listened with interest to the diatribe that came from the opposition ranks. In a matter of public importance which purported to be about Australia as a whole, he decided that he would try to make some cheap points about his home state of New South Wales. If I recall correctly, the member can best be described as a bit of a slippery customer. He begins by saying that housing interest rates under John Howard were 21 per cent. Home interest rates in 1982 were in fact 13.3 per cent because they were fixed interest rates. They were not deregulated until much later in the eighties. In 1982 they were fixed, and his assertion that home interest rates were 21 per cent when they were in fact just over 13 per cent is indicative of the accuracy of the rest of his speech. It is totally and utterly misleading in every aspect.

Let us take him on on what he had to say. He said that in the west of Sydney it was the policies of the federal government that had caused land prices, or rather home prices, to slip. What he failed to tell you was that one of the brilliant initiatives of the New South Wales government, which has presided over New South Wales having the most sluggish economy in the country, was to introduce a vendor tax, which plummeted house prices like you have never seen. When I said that the member for Prospect was a slippery customer, I said it precisely for the reason that he likes to distort the truth. The text of his matter of public importance says that the government failed:

... to accept responsibility for the impact of the seven back to back interest rate hikes since May 2002 on the household budgets of families with mortgages.

Let us debate that. This government takes responsibility for a soundly managed economy, which has resulted in Australians being better off than they ever were before—

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