[DucksNuts]

John Howard promised to keep interest rates low. He failed.

Originally Posted by Aliantha

They've raised interest rates to lower inflation. That's correct. Yes everything is cyclic, but if the Howard government hadn't pressured the reserve bank to keep interest rates low for so long, rather than allowing normal fluctuations, Australians might not be paying close to 10% interest on their mortgages now. Obviously there's a lot more involved than that, but the big one is consumer spending. When interest rates are low, the economy speeds up and people feel safe spending more on credit. I'm sure you know all this considering your line of work, so I don't need to go into it further.

My point wasn't so much that the previous government was right or wrong in particular, even though I disagreed with their policies in general. It was more that the rising interest rates cost them the election. Rightly or wrongly, people react to their own hip pocket, and these rate rises have affected everyone. Who should they blame? The people they percieve to be the reason for the pain. There aren't that many people who care to take into account the normal cycle of things or consider the reasons. Most people only consider how it affects them.