QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Senator WONG (South Australia—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:05): Thank you, Senator Kovacic. I referenced this yesterday—I think it was in response to Senator Bragg, but it might have been Senator McDonald; I can't recall—and I made the point that, earlier last month, the RBA governor did respond to a question about negative equity.

She said: At the moment, practically no-one is in negative equity. … it's absolutely miniscule. … … … … and it has actually declined over the last year or so. Now, that was about three or four weeks ago. I would say that I know that those opposite, the right-wing parties, actually don't want to deal with the fundamental issue of how you get more first home buyers into the market.

They can no longer argue about the tax policy, so they're resorting to another scare campaign. And that has really been demonstrated all week—that all they have is scare campaigns, fear campaigns, assertions which are not true or are grossly overexaggerated and— (Time expired)