Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Under the Labor Albanese government, interest rates are staying higher for longer, and this is having a devastating impact on people in the greater Ipswich region, where my Senate office is located, in the state of Queensland.

I want to give you some examples of the increase in mortgage repayments across the Ipswich region in various suburbs, since the last federal election. For someone buying an average home in Augustine Heights, the increase has been 64.2 per cent or $18,180 a year. For someone living in Springfield in an average house, the increase is 58.4 per cent or $16,284 a year. For someone living in Deebing Heights, where the average house costs $700,000—and this is a place where first home buyers buy their first home—average repayments have increased by 77.6 per cent, which is $18,012 a year.

In Ripley, another suburb in the greater Ipswich region where new home buyers and young families are buying their first home, the average home price is $677,000. The increase in average mortgage repayments is 76.4 per cent, or $17,280, for a family who have just bought a new home in Ripley, near my office. In Rosewood, where the average price of a home has increased to $650,000, there has been an astronomical increase of 108 per cent in mortgage repayments. In Booval, the price of an average home is $620,000, and there has been an increase in mortgage repayments of 97.1 per cent. And so it goes on. Australian families are paying more under Labor.