Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Minchin, the Minister representing the Prime Minister. Is the minister aware that Australians now owe a total of $40.8 billion on credit cards? Doesn’t this mean an average of $3,000 is owed on every one of the 13½ million credit cards in Australia? Is the minister further aware that, since interest rates went up for the ninth time in a row last month, banks like Westpac, NAB, BankWest and St George have increased credit card rates by up to 1.25 percentage points—that is, 1.25 per cent in just one month? If interest rates keep going up, how will families ever be able to pay off the $3,000 they already owe on each of their credit cards and meet their mortgage repayments? Doesn’t this again show why families are angry with the Howard government, which broke its promise to them that it would ‘keep interest rates at record lows’?