Today’s Reserve Bank decision to increase interest rates by half a percentage point is more difficult news for Australians with a mortgage.
Australians knew this was coming but it doesn’t make it any easier to handle.
Loan repayments will bite deeper into family budgets already feeling the sting of high grocery and energy costs.
Average homeowners owing $330,000 will now have to find around $90 more a month and that’s on top of the $220 in repayments since before the election.
For Australians with a $500,000 mortgage, the extra repayments will be around $140 a month in addition to the $335 they’ve had to pay since May.
We have been up‑front about the growing challenges facing our economy – some home‑grown, others from around the world.
The government changed hands at a time of rising inflation and interest rates alongside falling real wages.
Australians know their new government didn’t make this mess, but we take responsibility for cleaning it up.
Our Economic Plan is a deliberate and direct response to the growing pressures left for us in the economy.
We will continue working hard to:
- provide responsible and permanent cost‑of‑living relief that delivers an economic dividend – through our investments in cheaper childcare and medicines;
- invest in the potential of our people – through our investments in skills and a Future Made in Australia;
- invest in cleaner, cheaper and more reliable energy; and
- focus on budget repair and quality spending in a time of substantial fiscal pressures.
Working together we can build a stronger, broader, more sustainable economy with a better trained and more productive workforce.
A better future awaits but first we have to navigate together this inflation challenge we inherited, and the rising interest rates that accompany it.
