Page 641 - Week 02 - Thursday, 6 March 2008
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that they are likely to experience. Young Canberra families with mortgages are paying up to $4,000 a year extra in mortgage repayments—a legacy of the federal Liberals. That is a direct hit to their capacity to put food on the table, a direct drain on their discretionary budgets and a blow to morale that many are struggling to cope with.
Listen to the commentary in recent days by the charities and consumer financial advisory services. Listen to what they say is the root cause of the upsurge in demand for their support—interest rates. They are the Liberal Party’s interest rates, the interest rates that Mr Seselja, the Leader of the Opposition, did not mention. In a 15-minute speech yesterday he did not refer to the implications of the cuts, interest rates, inflation, mortgages or families and young families. We see their response today. They have realised their error. This is what the Liberal Party has done to young families.
The efficiencies that we are now being forced to endure are part of the response by a new commonwealth government with a conscience, with a concern for young families, with a concern for working families—indeed, with a concern for all families. The new government is trying as desperately as it can to address the issue which the Liberal Party has let loose on the Australian community, most particularly young families, and that is the implications of these interest rate rises for families, individuals and children.
Just reflect on it. Just stop, pause and consider. Since August 2005 there have been eight Liberal Party interest rate rises. On a standard mortgage that has resulted in an additional $4,400 a year, with the threat of an additional interest rate rise next month. It is not over. It takes time and an awful effort to slay the inflation beast. It takes an incredible effort just to slow it, and despite those eight interest rates rises there is still the possibility of a further one within the next month.
We are already at $4,400 on a standard young family mortgage—$110,000 over the life of a mortgage, and climbing. Just think about the implications of that for young families. Just think about that burden which the Liberal Party has imposed on young families in the ACT. The Leader of the Opposition did not think that it was worth commenting on. He was more concerned about the two per cent efficiency dividend imposed on the Australian archives to reduce the level of its growth—not even a cut to services, just a reduction in its growth.
The Liberal Party in this place thinks it is more important to express concern about a reduction in the level of growth of the Australian archives than it is to actually do something about an additional $4,400 on a young Canberra family’s mortgage payment. Think about how that $4,400 might have been spent by that family, say, on their children. That is $4,400 of discretionary expenditure that can no longer be spent on enhancing that child’s educational opportunities or life opportunities. That is $4,400 the Liberal Party has taken off the table or out of the bank balances of those young Canberra families. That is grim. It is hard. It will have a serious impact on the quality of life and the living standards of those families as they put all their discretionary extra expenditure onto their mortgage. It is another $367 a month, and growing.
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