Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

As I said last week, the government, of course, has considerable sympathy for those families on low incomes who are struggling to meet rent payments or mortgage repayments. That is why, under our government, we spend annually $2 billion in rent assistance assisting 954,000 families and individuals and we spend around $1 billion per annum on the Commonwealth-state housing agreement to assist with the construction of public housing. We have spent some, $7 billion on the first homeowners grants scheme and we are doing the utmost that we can to ensure that inflation remains in the two to three per cent band. Under our government, real wages have risen 20.8 per cent during our period in office. Real wage growth exceeds the growth in rentals, which I pointed out last week. Real wages have risen some $850 per month in the last five years, whereas rents have risen $740 per month. So even renters are better off as a result of our policies, which are ensuring that real wages grow—unlike what would occur under the Labor Party.