Thursday, 5 February 2026

 Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (09:59): This week people are looking down the barrel of another interest rate rise. For the third of Australians who have a mortgage, their repayments are about to go up. For the third that rent, it is entirely likely this increase will trickle through to them as another rent increase, because for the RBA, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. These interest rate hikes are a brutal way to tackle rising inflation, and it is all because governments refuse to tackle inflation themselves. They throw their hands up in the air. They say, ‘It’s up to the RBA. They’re independent from us,’ as if it is not our job to fix this when it absolutely is. Governments are the ones that have allowed house prices to continue to go up. They continue to hand tax breaks to wealthy investors. Governments allow the largest corporations to get away with not paying their fair share of taxes, and all the while people are struggling to afford groceries and pay their mortgage and pay their rent. Labor need to get their hands back on the steering wheel, because standing by and leaving inflation up to the RBA is driving us off a cliff.