Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the people of my electorate of Longman who have a mortgage or pay rent, which, of course, is the vast majority. These customers are being treated with contempt by their banks, which are making record profits. We see landlords being forced to push up rents to cover mortgage payments to already struggling families in our community, all in the name of greed and profits. We've all watched as interest rate increases announced by the RBA are more often than not passed on quickly and in full. This is in contrast to interest rate cuts being passed on slowly, in part or not at all. It is simply un-Australian to have your cake and eat it as well.

This is the issue with publicly listed companies, because the shareholder, not the customer, is the priority. The bottom line will always be increased to benefit the shareholder at the expense of the customer. CEOs are paid obscene salaries and bonuses, with KPIs and targets all set around the bottom line, never around customer service and satisfaction.

So the question is begged of the new government: what are you doing to help this cohort that are suffering these cost-of-living challenges? History tells us that the people of Australia, on average, have endured higher interest rates under Labor governments than under coalition governments. So I suspect the answer is they will do nothing as they simply have no economic prowess at all.