Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to ABS housing finance data which confirms that over 75,000 Australians locked in fixed interest home loans of up to 9.6 per cent during the government’s so-called war on inflation. Given that these households are today paying around $800 a month extra on their home loans, does the Treasurer now regret talking up inflation just one month after the last election? Hasn’t the Treasurer made the global financial crisis far worse for at least 75,000 Australian families?

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

The shadow Treasurer has the hide of a rhinoceros. I will tell you why: because the figures that he is quoting are simply incorrect.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Pyne interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Sturt!

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

I want to take the shadow Treasurer through those figures.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Pyne interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Sturt is warned!

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

At the beginning of 2002, official interest rates were 4.25 per cent and the proportion of all new fixed rate loans for dwellings was 7.8 per cent. Between May 2002 and November 2007 official interest rates rose 10 times to be 6.75 per cent. This drove the standard average variable mortgage rate from 6.05 per cent in 2002 to 8.5 per cent in November 2007. In the face of those ever-rising rates, what did people do? They fixed their mortgage rates in increasing numbers. This is a very important figure: by November 2007, 23.9 per cent of all new mortgages were fixed. That was a threefold increase. Think about that for a moment: a threefold increase as their interest rates went up and up and up.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hockey interjecting

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

You were in government. Remember? You were there. The Liberal and National parties were there in November 2007 when the proportion of all new mortgages that were fixed was 23.9 per cent. Those opposite would have everybody believe that the Rudd government somehow forced up or encouraged an increase and that occurred under us because more people were taking out fixed mortgage rates. The figures show that that claim is simply incorrect. It did not happen.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order which is relevance. This is a nervous Treasurer out of his depth. He is not answering—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Dickson will resume his place.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Adams interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lyons will be prompted to get up and go somewhere! The member for Dickson knows that he is permitted to come to the dispatch box to raise a point of order. That does not then enable him to make a running commentary, so I suggest to him, as he does this quite often, that he should remember that a point of order is a point of order. The Treasurer is being relevant to the question.

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

By November 2007, 23.9 per cent of all new mortgages were fixed. There was a threefold increase under the coalition. The proportion of new loans that were fixed stayed at around 23.9 per cent of new loans until March, but was never above, before falling sharply from April onwards. So what this actually exposes is the lengths to which those opposite will go to distort any economic fact for political advantage.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. That was the whole point of the question—from November to April!

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for North Sydney will resume his seat. Not again, Member for North Sydney!

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

So, in fact, 10 interest rate rises in a row were the driver of people moving to fixed rates. That is what the figures show: 10 interest rate rises in a row. And that expectation of rate rises was brought about by the coalition and their failure to fight inflation. That is what it was brought about by: the policies of the coalition—the former Treasurer up the back, who spent like a drunken sailor precisely at the wrong time of the economic cycle. That is actually what happened.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Yes, but it describes you. That is the point. So have some decency and tell the truth about the figures, because the fact is that these mortgages were fixed under the Liberal and National parties, which presided over 10 interest rate rises in a row, and that is why so many people, sadly, are caught in the predicament they are in today.