Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a challenging day for Australian mortgage holders. When I stood here on 5 September and gave my first speech, I talked about how somebody under 40 years of age in Australia is less likely than at any time in our history to own their home. The RBA decision to raise rates again in the midst of this cost-of-living crisis, in the midst of this inflationary crisis, has further embedded that. What a sad state of affairs when young Australians are unable to aspire to own their own home.

I have listened with great interest to the different commentary and answers from the other side to the questions from Senator Scarr and Senator Hume. In particular, I noted a couple of references to the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, about the pride in his work and what he's done. I want to read a note about the Treasurer. I just thought I would go back to a comment from Senator Farrell, which was that we are dealing with a whole bunch of issues coming at us internationally.

So, let's be clear. Prior to the election, when international headwinds were also impacting our economy, Jim Chalmers said:

The former government had an excuse for everything and a plan for nothing. They want to talk about international comparisons. Australians couldn't give a stuff what inflation is in the United States.

But here today we heard comparisons about international inflation and international interest rates whereas Jim Chalmers said, 'Australians couldn't give a stuff.' That's the standard that this Treasurer set but has not lived up to. He has no plan to bring down inflation in Australia and is leaving it to the RBA to do the heavy lifting in relation to inflation. Consistent with that, it means that Australian mortgage holders, the 33 per cent of Australians that have a mortgage, are the ones doing the heavy lifting to manage inflation in this country. Let's think about that. It is the one-third of people who have struggled to save and put money aside who are being burdened with the additional costs of managing inflation in this country because this government is unable to do so. Because Jim can't live up to the standard he set for himself, interest rates will be higher for longer, Australian families will continue to suffer and more young Australians will not be able to get into their own homes and that is a very sorry state of affairs.

One of the other things I wanted to talk about was the comment Senator Farrell made. He said, 'We have rejigged spending based on our commitments made to the Australian public before the last election.' I had a think about that and the two main commitments that I could think about were to reduce your electricity bill by $275 and to give you a cheaper mortgage. I can tell you right now, I don't know a single Australian who has saved a single dollar on their electricity bill. That is one thing that categorically has not occurred.

We now know that the average Australian family or household with a mortgage is paying $22,000 a year more. Senator Farrell made a comment that confused me. As some of you may know, I spent nearly two decades helping people buy their own homes, so I have a good understanding of what an average loan size is. Senator Farrell said 'an average loan size of $360,000'. I thought, 'That's pretty low.' We had a look at the ABS data and $360,000 is not an average home loan.

The average home loan in New South Wales, according to the ABS, is $764,000. In Victoria, it's $600,000. Nationally, it's $603,000. So that $360,000 figure is probably from somebody who got their loan 15 years ago and is halfway through paying it off, not someone who has to deal with the high cost of entering a home loan in the last one or two years and facing 12 interest rate rises.

Question agreed to.