Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that around half of fixed-rate mortgages will end this year? With these interest rate rises, an Australian family with a $500,000 mortgage will have to find an extra $920 every month just to keep up with repayments. Why do Australian families always pay more under Labor?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hume for his question—question 4, as predicted. The member asks about interest rates. In a number of questions today, yesterday and in previous sitting weeks I have been asked about what happened, as if the circumstances changed completely from before the election to after the election. This is what his former leader said before the election: 'We know where these pressures are coming from. We know the pressures of rising costs of living, the pressures on interest rates are coming from not just the war in Ukraine, which has caused an energy price shock the likes of which we have not seen for many decades, but, secondly, the disruptions to supply chains that are coming from the pandemic. We are still feeling the effects of the rather extraordinary economic times that we are living in.' That was the member for Cook just before the election, less than a month before the election.

The member for Hume would have Australians watching this believe that it was all hunky dory, that there was no inflation and there were no supply chain issues until there was a change of government. But it's just not true, as he himself said as recently as last September, when he spoke about interest rates bucking decades of downward trends and spoke about the inflationary environment. He says one thing in here and a different thing—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I haven't called you yet. I had a suspicion it would be that. The Prime Minister was talking about interest rates. The question was about interest rates. I am going to hear from the member for Hume on a point of order.

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's on relevance, Mr Speaker. The question was very specific: why do Australians always pay more under Labor?

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm going to hear from the Leader of the House.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, a point of order: that's a deliberate abuse, an absolute deliberate abuse, and he added—if you want to specify where you think something is not being relevant, you specify where you think, where the question—

No. Simply running a slogan for a second time—it doesn't point to standing orders, and they know that.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Resume your seat. The Prime Minister is in order. Member for Hume: if it happens again, you will be asked to leave immediately. Is that clear? I give the call to the Prime Minister.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks, Mr Speaker.

Yesterday, the member for Hume said that half of mortgages would change; today—he's just all over the shop. The truth is that the changes to interest rates began on their watch. The inflationary pressures had been there in the economy for a period of time, building up, as the former Prime Minister said, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and also the supply chain issues that emerged from the pandemic. Now, they want to just wish those away, but you can't just wish these things away. You have to act on them, and that is why my government is acting on them.