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

I would have thought the Leader of the Opposition understood that if you subtracted 8.3 from 12.75 you would be left with in excess of 4½. That is the difference between what interest rates will be for housing in Australia after the latest increase by the Reserve Bank and what they averaged under the former Labor government. I would have thought the Leader of the Opposition understood that if you take 8.3 and you double it you get 16.6, which is still 0.4 below 17 per cent, which was the level that housing interest rates hit when the Labor Party was last in office. So when I say now, when I said three years ago and when I will say over the weeks and months ahead that interest rates will always be lower under the coalition than they are under Labor, I speak the truth. Not only is it verified by the experience of the last Labor government compared with ours; if you look at the policies of the Labor Party for this coming election, particularly its industrial relations policy, according to independent economic experts the industrial relations policies of the Labor Party will exert upward pressure on interest rates. So not only do we have history but we also have current policy to validate my claim and my argument that interest rates will always be lower under the coalition than under the Labor Party.

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