How rate rise will hit wallet

NORTH Queenslanders with a mortgage will be on average $458 worse off following the increase to interest rates.

On Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia put interest rates up by 0.25 per cent, with a further rise expected down the line.

Labor’s Herbert candidate John Ring said while the RBA was an independent body that made its own decision on monetary policy, governments had a role in easing cost-of-living pressures and in creating secure jobs, which put upward pressure on wages.

Numbers crunched by the Opposition show repayments on an average Kirwan home, worth about $350,000, would increase $36.33 per month, and more than $435 annually.

In North Ward, for an average home worth $767,500, repayments would increase by $995.87 annually.

In Vincent, on a house worth about $250,000, the interest rate rise would mean a $311.36 annual increase.

“All Scott Morrison and the LNP have is a plan to get them through the election, and oneoff payments timed to land during the campaign and end after,” Mr Ring said.

“No matter where you go in North Queensland, you hear the same story – the cost of medicines is going up, the cost of seeing a GP is going up, groceries are going up, petrol is going up, and now the mortgage is going up. Everything is going up but people’s wages.”

Mr Ring said an Albanese government had a plan to strengthen Medicare, make childcare 96 per cent cheaper, cut power bills and cut the cost of buying a home.

The Prime Minister yesterday announced his government would freeze the deeming rates for the next two years at current levels. “This will benefit around 890,000 Australians, including 450,000 aged pensioners,” he said.