Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. I have seen those figures and they are disturbing for all of us. They are disturbing to working families right across Australia, who are under financial pressure. They are disturbing because of the burden which those working families have had to bear as a result of 11 interest rate rises in a row. As a result of that, when you combine it with the cost pressures on the family budget—the cost of groceries, the cost of petrol, the cost of all those other things which everyone has to reconcile each week to make sure that they can pay the bills—it is getting increasingly tough out there.

The challenge for us lies at two levels. What are we going to do in terms of ensuring that we keep maximum downward pressure on inflation in order to ensure that we therefore have maximum downward pressure on interest rates? That, as I said at the beginning of this year, is the core challenge which the government faces—the fight against inflation. That is why every element of the government’s policy arsenal is deployed in that direction. It goes to what we do in terms of public demand through the budget; it goes to how we encourage private savings; it goes to what we do on the supply side of the economy, too, in skills and infrastructure and workforce participation.

Then you go specifically to housing itself. What can we as the government of Australia do to assist those who are out there in the housing market or wanting to be in the housing market in these difficult circumstances in which Australian families find themselves? The first measure we have embraced is to establish a federal department of housing which has its own minister.

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