George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Sterle talked about interest rates; he did not talk about mortgage rates. You should know the difference. Senator Minchin knows when he talks about mortgage rates in 1996 being 10 per cent that the real interest rates were those being provided by the non-bank lenders, such as RAMS and Aussie Home loans—interest rates which were down to around 6½ per cent at the time. It was the introduction of the non-bank lenders into the marketplace that drove down mortgage rates at that time, not the decisions of the coalition government. It was due to the fact that there was competition in the marketplace. Anybody who borrowed around that time knows that competition was there and knows the impact that the non-bank lenders had on driving down mortgage interest rates.

But I want to focus on the past couple of days. It has been obvious for the past few months that this government is totally out of touch with the Australian community, but the events of the past couple of days have demonstrated not only that they are out of touch but also that some of them are actually off the planet. The Treasurer should be spending his time being concerned about the ninth rise in interest rates in a row and whether or not they are going to continue to rise and what policy formulation is necessary to ensure that that does not happen. He should be worried about credit card debt in this country and the amount of credit card debt that families are racking up to the banks and to those people in the financial sector who run the credit cards—with interest rates around 17 and 18 per cent, which they cannot afford to pay. Families are accumulating debt at a rapid rate, and he should be worrying about what policy settings should be adopted to deal with that issue. He should be concerned about petrol prices and the impact those prices are having on people’s living standards. He should be concerned about grocery prices and the domination of the marketplace—which we often hear Senator Joyce ranting on about in this place—by Coles and Woolworths and the big players and he should be ensuring that consumers are getting a fair go and are not being ripped off. He should be focused on those issues, because that is what the Treasurer’s job is. But what has the Treasurer been focused on? He has been focused on where he is going to live next.

We know he has been trying very hard over the past two or three years to get accommodation at the taxpayers’ expense, but he was focused on the Lodge and Kirribilli House. He told journalists two years ago that he was going to take the Prime Minister on; that he was going to stand the Prime Minister on his head; that Mr Howard could not win the next election; that he, the Treasurer, was the rightful person to carry the banner for the coalition government in the next election; and that he is the one who is entitled to Kirribilli House and the Lodge. He demonstrated over the past couple of years, and with his statement yesterday, how big his heart is. It is about the size of a pea.

He did not have the courage to carry out what he told those journalists he was going to do to the Prime Minister—so now what is his move? He did not have the courage to get the big house on the corner, so instead he is now floating the proposition that we should have accommodation for the Treasurer—‘Why shouldn’t the Treasurer have a house provided by the taxpayer?’ Ordinary working people have just had their ninth rise in interest rates and here we have a Treasurer who wants the taxpayer to pay for his accommodation. He wants the taxpayers to buy a nice house—