Page 865 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 25 July 1989
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Labor Government are to blame for the hardships being experienced by the ACT as a result of increasing interest rates. Families in the ACT are suffering the financial burden of increased interest rates as a direct result of Labor Party policies.
This Government is neglecting the community in not attending to their needs. The problems that are arising are not singular issues but are a series of complex social concerns that could have great effects on the ACT community. Never before have interest rates had such devastating effects, Mr Speaker.
CARE, the credit and debt counselling service, is the only community financial counselling service in the ACT, and as such is at the forefront of dealing with the effects of financial hardship on individuals, families and the community. CARE has stated that there is already an acknowledged serious overcommitment problem in our community. This is especially evident when you consider the eight to ten weeks waiting time that exists at CARE for first appointments. The financial burden on the individual is indeed a heavy weight to carry.
Mr Speaker, it must not be forgotten by the Labor Government that the cost of financial failure transfers private costs between individuals and a profit motivated industry to public costs, putting pressure on an already overburdened court, health and welfare system. These concerns are likely to affect all of the ACT community if the Labor Government lets interests rates continue at their high level and the ACT Government persists in not addressing the problems involved.
I would like to know, Mr Speaker, what the Labor Government proposes to do to alleviate these growing concerns in Canberra. The ACT community is particularly vulnerable. One needs only to look at past booms and busts in our building industry and associated industries to appreciate this.
The current interest rate crisis may well make any previous busts appear insignificant. The Labor imposed interest rate crisis affects home owners directly, especially first home buyers on the rental treadmill. These people are simply no longer able to buy a home of their own. The percentage of first home buyers in the market is 5 per cent, a far cry from the usual 30 per cent.
Today the prerequisite for home purchase for first home buyers is dual income and no children. A report recently in a Sydney newspaper said:
High mortgage rates are forcing increasing numbers of married women to have abortions because they cannot afford to bear children and keep a roof over their heads...Married women, who may once have elected to carry an unplanned pregnancy to full term, are turning
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