Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I am responding, of course, to the question about the cost of living, and I'll come to mortgages in a minute. When it comes to the cost of living, energy prices are a big part of that. One of the reasons why we've got higher energy prices than we'd like is that we had a decade of energy crisis, and the person most responsible for that is the shadow Treasurer. So that's the energy part of the cost-of-living challenge.

When it comes to mortgages, those opposite are either dishonest or they fail to understand two basic facts. First of all, when it comes to the quotes that they are using about the Prime Minister's launch in Perth, we were referring then and we're proud to have a policy for smaller mortgages and cheaper repayments with our help-to-buy policy, something that the—

Op position members interjecting—

Well, that's what it's about. It's about smaller mortgages and smaller repayments. That's what the policy's about.

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