QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Senator WONG (South Australia—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:36): Thank you for the question. I think I did get this question from the Liberal Party yesterday, but I'm very happy to answer it again. I say to you that the five per cent deposit scheme has helped many thousands of Australians into the market who would not otherwise have entered the market.

The advice I have is, firstly, that most people come into the scheme with more than a five per cent deposit; and, secondly, about 70 per cent are ahead on their repayments and 29 per cent are on time. So that obviously tells you that a very small number are in arrears. In fact, the advice I have is that out of more than 200,000 guarantees issued, only 13 have been paid out.

In fact, I did look at this after the discussion previously. The evidence from CBA and Westpac is that the performance of that cohort over the last few years is actually better than the average when it comes to where repayments are. I note that the RBA governor in June, last month, said that at the moment practically no-one is in negative equity.

It's absolutely minuscule, and it has actually declined over the last year or so. So I would say to you, Senator, that your coalition parties have so little that you can agree on other than that you don't want change and that it's in your interest to frighten people. I would actually say to you that I don't think it is in your political interest, because the more pessimistic people are, I suspect, the more they look to Ms Hanson and not Mr Canavan.

But that's a strategic decision for you—sorry, Matt. (Time expired) The PRESIDENT: Senator McDonald, first supplementary?