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

You boasted about the fact that you drove workers’ wages down. It was a passionate conviction. They fell by 1.7 per cent when you were last in office, and they have risen by 20.8 per cent in a shorter period of time.

But let me deal with the question of the alleged indebtedness of the Australian community. I point out to the Leader of the Opposition and to the shadow spokesman on Treasury matters that, overall, personal insolvency in Australia remains quite low. The Reserve Bank of Australia—and this is a very good measure—reports that, as at the end of December 2006, the ratio of non-performing to total housing loan on the banks’ Australian books stood at 0.31 per cent, which is a very small proportion of the market. While we are into comparisons, this compares to a peak of 0.6 per cent of outstanding loans in 1996. So, if you look at the distressed section of the Australian economy measured by indebtedness, you will see it was 0.67 per cent in 1996 and it is now at 0.31 per cent. That suggests to me that things have got better rather than worse over the last 11 years.

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