Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is directed to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware of new mortgage repossession figures from the Supreme Court of New South Wales for 2006 which show mortgage repossession actions have increased by 75 per cent since 2004? Does the Prime Minister accept that the four back-to-back interest rate rises since 2004 have contributed to this massive 75 per cent increase?

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

Facts are facts. If there has been an increase in the repossession rate then it has occurred. But the Reserve Bank’s September 2006 financial stability review noted that the housing loan arrears rate has increased from a low of 0.17 per cent of loans outstanding in June 2004 to 0.3 per cent now. It stands to reason that, if at a time of very low interest rates people borrow a great deal more than they did during high interest rates, some people will borrow more than they can afford. It also stands to reason that if you have a state government that imposes penal rates of exit tax—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Lilley has asked his question.

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

Let me say to the member for Lilley—and I know he was rather disappointed that interest rates remained on hold today, so he is dredging up a question about repossession rates—that I can assure him that the homebuyers of Western Sydney regard the circumstances in which they are now living as infinitely superior to the circumstances in which they lived in the early 1990s when interest rates were only just coming off the levels of 17 per cent or 18 per cent that they had got to.