Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today, in answer to questions by the opposition about the cost of living and housing affordability, we again saw a demonstration of how out of touch this government is. Today, in answering a question, Minister Scullion went straight to the point which Labor has been making for some time: that the government has failed to keep its promise to keep interest rates at record lows. We have now had five interest rate increases since the last election, when the government made that dishonest promise to the Australian people. And, of course, it is the ninth interest rate rise in a row—hardly a government with a strong record in this area.

They then go on and tell another mistruth about interest rate rises. They say they will always be lower under a coalition government than under a Labor government. But—oops!—they forget about when Mr Howard was Treasurer in 1982 and interest rates were in fact 22 per cent. Oops! They always seem to forget that matter—the highest that interest rates have ever been in this country, and who was Treasurer at that time? Mr Howard. It gives an absolute lie to the claim that interest rates will always be higher under a Labor government than under a coalition government, because it is simply not true. The government took to the last election a simply dishonest election ploy as part of a scare campaign, and this election will see another scare campaign. This is what the government do: they will try to confuse people with—