James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Question time today was particularly illuminating because of a lack of information given by ministers in response to questions. But what was particularly illuminating for Australians, particularly mortgage holders, was this hubris, this arrogance, this Marie Antoinette approach of the modern Labor Party of 'let people eat cake'. We have John Farrell, who is the Marie Antoinette of the Albanese Labor government. For those Australians, including me, who saw our mortgages go up yesterday, one question that was actually put by me to Minister Farrell was: What is the definition of mortgage stress? Minister Farrell just didn't answer the question.

I'll take Senator Colbeck's interjection. He didn't know the answer, but I think it was more that he didn't care. He didn't care that millions of Australians are facing something called mortgage stress. It is all right for the modern Labor Party with the money that they earn. But they have fallen out of touch with middle Australia. We saw that with the Voice referendum, where the Labor Party was convinced of the righteousness of the Voice and would brook no arguments against it. They forgot that the biggest issue in Australia today is cost of living, and it is only getting worse under this Labor government.

The questions that were put by the opposition today to the government were to elicit information. My second question was: How many Australian households are currently experiencing mortgage stress, and how many more will as a result of this interest rate rise under Labor? We wanted the information from the Labor ministers. They didn't know or didn't care. But it goes so much deeper than that in their approach to how they deal with the Australians who are facing not only this mortgage cliff, in many instances, but also mortgage stress.

For those who are listening at home, we were able to find out the answer to the first question, which is that mortgage stress is generally defined as a household needing to spend more than 30 per cent of disposable income on mortgage repayments. That is only going to rise, because under Labor we've had 12 interest rate rises in the last 16 months. Of the 17 times that the Reserve Bank have met since Labor has been in power, they've increased interest rates 12 times. When we were in power the Reserve Bank met 96 times and only raised interest rates once. This is a telling statistic in terms of how the independent Reserve Bank looks at both the economic conditions governing Australia and, by default, the policies of the government that is governing Australia.

What mortgage stress means is that families who've got a mortgage of, say, $750,000 are going to be paying an extra $24,000 a year. A mortgage of $750,000 is not uncommon in the capital cities. Where I live, out in the Darling Downs, that would be at the top end of the scale, but in the capital cities having a mortgage of three-quarters of a million dollars is actually quite common. I've spoken in this place previously about families on the Sunshine Coast, where my office is, having to pull their children out of sport because they can't afford the fees for them to play soccer and netball. What we've got, Mr Acting Deputy President, is the Labor Party, by their refusal to answer questions and by the manner in which they refuse to answer questions, thumbing their noses at the people of Australia. What is telling is that Minister Farrell said they were going to be in power a very long time. Such hubris! I think, like Icarus, he might be flying too close to the sun.