LABOR and the coalition are locked in a tit-for-tat battle over who should accept the blame for home owners who locked themselves into fixed mortgages just months before interest rates started falling.
No surprises who each side is blaming:
Treasurer Wayne Swan lays the blame at the feet of the former Howard Government because it presided over 10 interest rate rises.
He acknowledged that people on fixed rates were in a difficult position.
"The main reason that they are there is because interest rates went up something like 10 times under the Liberal Party," Mr Swan said.
"And, of course, many people reacted to that by fixing their rates."
And
Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey insists the Rudd Government has to take responsibility for what happened to home owners.
"The Government took exactly the wrong path in trying to deliberately slow down the economy in its so-called war against inflation at a time when there was a looming credit crisis and, obviously, very dark clouds on the horizon," he said.
"The Reserve Bank was egged on to increase interest rates by implication if not directly by the government." Mr Hockey said it was a disaster for people on fixed mortgages.
"Now, they may well be paying 400 basis points or up to 4 per cent more for their mortgage today than they would have if Kevin Rudd had not declared a losing war on inflation," he said.
I have a better idea; how about these people accept the consequences of their own actions? They took a gamble that rates would continue to go up (despite the spectre of global recession) and lost.
That’s the nature of gambling, they wouldn’t be complaining if they had won.
Next they will want the government to mitigate their losses.
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