Tuesday brought another blow to homeowners with interest rates rising another quarter of a per cent, about $75 a month more if you’ve got a mortgage of $500,000. This is the thirteenth rate rise since Labor took office in 2022, and all the Treasurer and Prime Minister could do on Tuesday was crack jokes in Question Time.  Their arrogance and disconnect with the everyday concerns of Mallee residents is galling.

The Reserve Bank’s rate hike came on the back of a spike in inflation late last week, with electricity prices a major contributor in the latest data, increasing the pressure on every household.  

Labor’s spending is driving up inflation but in Canberra there has been no apology.  Inflation has been coming down in other parts of the world but not here. The Albanese Labor’s government’s spending as a percentage of total spending in the economy is the highest (outside the pandemic) since the 1986 under Hawke/Keating.  Treasurer Chalmers idolises former Treasurer Keating but has shown no signs he will follow his predecessor in reining in government spending to prevent a ‘banana republic’.  Remember that in Keating’s ‘recession we had to have’ that followed, interest rates went over 17 per cent in the early 1990s as Labor yet again bungled the economy.

I am very concerned for young people and those trying to get into the housing market, who are unable to afford homes. Higher interest rates make it even harder to get into housing.

I am writing to Councils about one of the few, and sadly narrow, federal housing funding opportunities that exist after the Albanese Government completely overlooked Mallee in their one-off Regional Housing Support program.

I will also be in the region on Monday 23 February at 12 noon in Nhill at the LOL Coffee Van, then 2:30pm at Natimuk at the Natty Pub, and a Pollie in the Pub at the White Hart Hotel, Horsham at 5:30pm.  It’s always great if you can email anne.webster.mp@aph.gov.au in advance if you’re coming and please provide, in advance, documents you’d like to discuss.

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