Interest rates
Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (09:54): Our banking overlords will so kindly pass on the quarter of a per cent interest rate cut after years of incessant rises – yay. What they should be doing is cutting people’s mortgage rates by double that, by at least half a per cent. Look, I am not trying to minimise the savings that people with mortgages will get from this cut. No doubt they urgently need every cent, but honestly, this is a drop in this cost-of-living-crisis ocean, particularly when interest rates have done nothing but increase for the last 50 months. Every time that interest rates have increased, the big banking corporations have no issues raising their mortgage rates more than the RBA increase. People need relief, and the banks are making obscene megaprofits. They have plenty of room to move and can absolutely afford to do some of the heavy lifting to provide people in our community with cost-of-living relief. Let us not make them feel like they are doing us all a favour by doing the bare minimum. The banks have been profiting off mortgage stress for years. It is time they properly helped take some of the pressure off. They should cut mortgage rates with the same enthusiasm they cut ATMs in our suburbs.