Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Prime Minister and relates to the government’s undertakings persistently in the last election campaign, which are still on their website, to keep interest rates at record lows. Has the Prime Minister seen comments by mother of five Debbie Bridgman of Western Sydney? On 3 August, the Sydney Morning Herald reported her as saying:

“When someone says that, you put your trust in them and feel a certain level of security” ...

“We started plans [for the extension] a year and a half ago, knowing we could afford to do that without expecting interest rates to continue to rise.”

Does the Prime Minister agree with his parliamentary secretary Malcolm Turnbull that people like Debbie Bridgman have overdramatised the three rate rises since the election?

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

I have seen those remarks by Debbie Bridgman—is it? Let me say to her, and let me say to families all around Australia, that last week’s interest rate rise was not something that anybody in the community welcomed. However, it was an unavoidably sensible and responsible response by the Reserve Bank of Australia to a number of factors. As I said at the time, and I repeat it here, the action taken by the Reserve Bank at the time it was taken could well have reduced the likelihood of more severe action being taken in the future.

As my response to Neil Mitchell on the eve of the last election indicated, at no stage in the last election campaign did I give guarantees that interest rates would never rise. What I said—and as sure as I stand here at the dispatch box, I know it to be true—was that interest rates under the coalition will always be lower than they are under a Labor government. I would say to Debbie Bridgman that, if you are really interested in long-term interest rate sustainability and affordability, please do not vote Labor.