Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

It is. The statistics from the ABS do not lie on this. You have perpetrated a greater economic pressure on Australian families because the proportion of their income that is spent on interest rate payments is greater than in the time that you complain about and shout about. You talk about a nominal rate, but what we are talking about is the actual impact on the proportion of their weekly budget. Something you could not refute under the previous government, and one of the reasons you are sitting where you are today, is that Australian families got it. You might want to pretend about the nominal rate debate and try to run up the flag—and you did. To be fair, you put this test to the Australian people. You said, ‘Hey, look! They have 17 per cent or 23 per cent or 25 per cent’—whatever the rate was—and you put that test to the Australian people. They said, ‘Well, actually we don’t agree, because we’re under pressure right now from the interest rate increases caused by your government, which take a greater proportion of our income than they did in the period you’re talking about.’ It is a statistical fact.