56 Aus regions where mortgage arrears are worse than average
The latest S & P Market Overview for the first quarter of 2025 found the national average for home loan repayment arrears of more than a month was 0.97 per cent as of March – a figure exceeded by 56 SA4 regions.
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Scroll down for full list of SA4 regions with arrears exceeding national average
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This as four states/territories also topped the national arrears level led by Victoria's 1.17pc, Northern Territory 1.01pc, and New South Wales 1.07pc with Australian Capital Territory on 1.29pc off a smaller, more volatile base; while four others were below national average – Tasmania (0.58pc), South Australia (0.74pc), Queensland (0.71pc), and Western Australia (0.86pc).
There was a silver lining thanks to rate cuts put in by the Reserve Bank, only one of which would have impacted the data.
S & P Global said 'arrears are likely to remain low with interest rate cuts in play and inflation coming down'.
'Heightened global uncertainty and its effect on global trade and supply chains, will have downstream impacts on business and consumer confidence, affecting investment and consumer spending decisions.'
But it added 'households are likely to behave more cautiously, electing to save or paydown mortgages over spending. This will help to keep arrears low.'
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The top 10 worst postcodes for mortgage arrears were named, shockingly half of them were in Victoria – with the worst about three times national average.
1. Cragieburn, VIC (3064): 3.10pc
2. Caroline Springs, VIC (3023): 2.81pc
3. Bateau Bay, NSW (2261): 2.78pc
4. Narre Warren, VIC (3805): 2.59pc
5. Liverpool, NSW (2170): 2.44pc
6. Carrara, QLD (4211): 2.20pc
7. Pakenham, VIC (3810): 2.11pc
8. Melton South, VIC (3338): 2.07pc
9. Blacktown, NSW (2148): 2.02pc
10. Campbelltown, NSW (2560): 1.94pc
S&P Global does expect unemployment to rise this year which will impact arrears levels, but forecasts it will remain below prepandemic levels.
'Interest rate cuts will ease debt serviceability pressures. But we believe they won't make a material difference to overall arrear levels because they're likely to be gradual. These factors will enable most households to remain current on their mortgages.'
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SA4 REGIONS WITH ARREARS ABOVE AUS AVERAGE:
VICTORIA
Melbourne – North West, VIC: 2.88pc
Shepparton, VIC: 2.63pc
Melbourne – South East, VIC: 2.04pc
Melbourne – North East, VIC: 2.03pc
Latrobe – Gippsland, VIC: 2.01pc
Ballarat, Vic: 1.94pc
Melbourne – West, Vic: 1.86pc
Melbourne – Outer East, Vic: 1.77pc
Hume, Vic: 1.69pc
Mornington Peninsula, Vic: 1.63pc
Geelong, Vic: 1.54pc
Warrnambool and South West Vic, Vic: 1.51pc
Melbourne – Inner South, Vic: 1.24pc
Melbourne – Inner, Vic: 1.06pc
NSW
Riverina, NSW: 2.77pc
Sydney – South West, NSW: 2.05pc
Sydney – Inner South West, NSW: 2.00pc
Richmond – Tweed, NSW: 1.89pc
Sydney – Parramatta, NSW: 1.73pc
Sydney – Outer South West, NSW: 1.72pc
Central Coast, NSW: 1.68pc
Capital Region, NSW: 1.60pc
Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven, NSW: 1.57pc
Sydney – Blacktown, NSW: 1.56pc
Hunter Valley exc Newcastle, NSW: 1.55pc
Sydney – Outer West and Blue Mountains, NSW: 1.49pc
Sydney – Baulkham Hills and Hawkesbury, NSW: 1.42pc
Sydney – Inner West, NSW: 1.42pc
Far West and Orana, NSW: 1.36pc
Central West, NSW: 1.31pc
Illawarra, NSW: 1.29pc
Mid North Coast, NSW: 1.22pc
Coffs Harbour – Grafton, NSW: 1.21pc
Far West and Orana, NSW: 1.05pc
QLD
Queensland – Outback, Qld: 2.16pc
Logan – Beaudesert, Qld: 1.54pc
Mackay, Qld: 1.31pc
Sunshine Coast, Qld: 1.24pc
Fitzroy, Qld: 1.15pc
Cairns, Qld: 1.13pc
Gold Coast, Qld: 1.11pc
Moreton Bay – North, Qld: 1.10pc
Townsville, Qld: 1.05pc
Wide Bay, Qld: 1.04pc
SA:
Barossa – Yorke – Mid North, SA: 1.42pc
Adelaide – North, SA: 1.35pc
South Australia – South East, SA: 1.27pc
Adelaide – Central and Hills, SA: 1.11pc
WA:
Perth – North East, WA: 1.26pc
Western Australia – Wheat Belt, WA: 1.26pc
Mandurah, WA: 1.23pc
Perth – North West, WA: 1.14pc
Perth – South West, WA: 1.13pc
TAS:
Hobart, Tas: 1.26pc
West and North West Tas, Tas: 1.13pc
NT
Northern Territory – Outback, NT: 2.08pc
Darwin, NT: 1.04pc
ACT:
Australian Capital Territory, ACT: 1.29pc
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SARAH FERGUSON, PRESENTER: Mike Huckabee was appointed by President Donald Trump as the US ambassador to Israel earlier this year. He joins me now from Jerusalem. Ambassador Huckabee, welcome. MIKE HUCKABEE, US AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL: Thank you, Sarah, an honour to be with you. SARAH FERGUSON: What is the US response to Australia joining other key allies in committing to recognition of a Palestinian state? MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, the US is disappointed that nations like Australia, UK and others, have decided to pick this particular time to unilaterally recognise a second state. I think that the timing has been very hurtful to any prospects of negotiating some settlement in Gaza with Hamas. They basically walked away. This is a gift to them and it's unfortunate. And also, it is a violation of the agreement that was done in Oslo that any type of recognition of a Palestinian state would involve the Israelis. This clearly does not, and I would say that it is unfortunate, but it's also very disappointing to the United States. SARAH FERGUSON: I think it's worth pointing out that Prime Minister Netanyahu has said in the past that he was proud to have put the brakes on Oslo. But let me ask you a specific question, have you discussed this issue with Donald Trump, President Trump? MIKE HUCKABEE: Absolutely and we discussed it at State Department level with the Secretary. There is an enormous level of disappointment, and some disgust. You perhaps heard the Secretary Rubio's interview this past weekend and he made it very clear that the result of this has been to completely halt any type of thoughtful negotiations going forward, and it's just very terrible timing for this to come about. SARAH FERGUSON: Can you be precise? We have heard what Secretary Rubio said. What did President Trump specifically say about this decision? MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, I don't want to disclose personal conversations with the President, that wouldn't be appropriate for me to do. SARAH FERGUSON: Perhaps, ambassador, you could characterise them for us? MIKE HUCKABEE: I can characterise them as sharing what I just shared. That is disappointing and frustrating. Frustrating that there was no communication with the United States. As Israel's closest partner, we would have expected that there would have been some heads up. There wasn't. This was done unilaterally. That was a disappointment. In the case of the UK, the President had had an extensive visit with the Prime Minister in the UK and about an hour after the President left to go back to Washington, that's when this decision was announced. One would think that it would have been an appropriate topic of conversation while the two were sitting there together. SARAH FERGUSON: And just if I could come back, you used the word "disgust", that's a very strong term. Who expressed disgust? Was that the President? MIKE HUCKABEE: I don't know that the President used that word. I would say that it is a characterisation of the sentiment - whether or not that word was employed by anybody in particular other than me. I think that it does express, though, the emotional sentiment, a sense of, you've got to be kidding! Why would they be doing this? And why would they be doing it now? And why wouldn't they not be telling the United States, or telling Israel, for that matter. But to go out and make a public announcement like this - it was unseemly. SARAH FERGUSON: Let me just put to you some of the arguments that were made by the Australian Government in making this decision. They felt, for example, that they had no option than to recognise a Palestinian state before Israel annexed the West Bank and to use their words, there was no state left to recognise. What do you say to the Australian Government in relation to that? MIKE HUCKABEE: I would say what Australia and the other countries may have done inadvertently is to push Israel towards doing exactly what they're afraid of. SARAH FERGUSON: But just talk to me about the US. This is really a question as to whether or not the US is becoming isolated? Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong said that they had to do this because shortly, given what we've heard from the Israelis in relation to annexing the West Bank, there would be no state left to recognise. So how do you respond to that? MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, I would be very quick to tell you, I don't think that the United States feels isolated at all. You asked do we feel isolated? No, we don't. We're a sovereign country, so is Israel. So is Australia. Australia can do what it wants to do but we certainly don't have to agree with it. We don't have to like it. We don't have to pretend that it's okay, because in our view, it's not okay. And it was ill-timed, and I think, when hostages are being held, and tortured, not just held. They're not being fed. They're being forced to dig their own graves. We have seen the videos. And for this to come at a time like this, further endangering them, and endangering any hopes of some peaceful resolution of dealing with Hamas and getting them to lay down their arms. And Sarah, something that I think is very important to note, in the very week that the Australian Government, along with many others, were declaring publicly for a Palestinian state, you know who wasn't declaring for a Palestinian state? The Arab League. What they were calling for, that very week, was for Hamas to disarm and to let all of the hostages go. SARAH FERGUSON: I think that I just have to interrupt you there, ambassador, because it is clear that the Arab League has welcomed this recognition of a Palestinian state. But let's move on. Let me ask you a different question. MIKE HUCKABEE: They weren't calling for it last week, Sarah. They weren't calling for it last week. They were calling for Hamas to lay down their arms and surrender the hostages, and I think that it is an issue of timing. So I want to be very clear that, of course, they probably all support a second state, that they knew that there was a time and a place. Last week wasn't the time or the place. SARAH FERGUSON: Let me ask you this question. Do you take it as a starting point for any discussion on this conflict that the idea of a two-state solution is dead? MIKE HUCKABEE: The idea of a two-state solution is only alive if Israel and the Palestinian Authority can figure out a way to make it work. But as long as you have people chanting "From the river to the sea", as long as the Palestinian Authority continues to pay terrorists stipends for murdering Jews ... SARAH FERGUSON: I think to be clear, that Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, has committed to stop doing that. But please continue. MIKE HUCKABEE: No, actually, he hasn't, Sarah. He said in Arabic, that if there is only one penny left in the Treasury, that penny will go to the martyrs. So whatever he may say in one language to sound as if he's appeasing, the truth is that he has not given up on that policy. It is still going on today. SARAH FERGUSON: Let me ask you another question. This is really looking at the situation in Gaza, which was along with the question over the annexation of the West Bank was the other set of circumstances that the Australian Government described as motivating them in this decision. Why is the Trump administration apparently powerless in its ability to impact on the way Benjamin Netanyahu has conducted this war? MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, I don't know that it is the role of the United States to tell Israel how to prosecute a war. I want to remind you that there were 100 Americans who were held hostage, too. Two of them, who are deceased, their remains are still being held hostage. Some of them are out. Others have been killed, and we have their remains back. SARAH FERGUSON: Does not the United States' very large military aid, billions and billions of dollars to Israel, give you some leverage over how the war is conducted? MIKE HUCKABEE: I guess if we wanted to tell them what to do, we would but they're our partner. We respect the fact that they were attacked on October 7. They're not the attacking country. They were attacked country and there were 1,200 people... SARAH FERGUSON: Sure but the question here... MIKE HUCKABEE: No, Sarah, I'm going to stop you there. SARAH FERGUSON: Go ahead. MIKE HUCKABEE: Because I'm so tired of people blaming Israel for the fact that it is defending themselves against the monsters who raped women in front of their families, who mutilated their bodies, who burnt babies, who beheaded people, who burned elderly people in their wheelchairs, who took 250 people hostage - continued to torture them - many of them Holocaust survivors, many of them children and infants and somehow, we're supposed to blame Israel because it's trying to defend its country. No, I'm sorry, we're not going to tell them how to defend themselves. SARAH FERGUSON: As I have said many times on this program, the actions of Hamas are repulsive to all right-thinking people. This is a question however about the extended coverage of the war, not Israel's right to defend itself. Israel has dropped 100,000 tonnes of explosives on Gaza, a very small territory. That is more than the combined ordinance dropped on Hamburg, Dresden and the United Kingdom in the Second World War. That is the question. You cannot do that over a tiny space without mass casualty. So why doesn't the US have anything to say about the huge extent of civilian casualties in Gaza? MIKE HUCKABEE: We do. We have a lot to say about it. The first thing that we say is that Hamas should have surrendered on October the 8th. That would have ended the war and there wouldn't have been civilian casualties. The second thing that we say is that Hamas shouldn't do what it does routinely, which is put its civilians in front of targets that the Israelis announce in advance they're going to hit. I've got to be very clear to you. Not even the US military, and I think that we have one of the best and most ethical that have ever existed, but we don't announce in advance when we're going to hit a target, where we're going to hit and tell people to get out of it. Israel does that. They get no credit for that but Hamas on the other hand, they move their civilians right towards the target that Israel has announced, and then they threaten to shoot anyone who gets away from the target. So do they have a lot of civilian casualties? Yes, they do and a lot of the reason that they do is because Hamas makes sure that they have civilian casualties, because then, everybody can blame Israel for it. SARAH FERGUSON: I just note that you're not answering the question about Israel's conduct of the war. But let me ask you a different question about the war. MIKE HUCKABEE: No, I just did. I told you that Israel, I did announce that. I told you very clearly. SARAH FERGUSON: A partial answer, if I may, ambassador. A partial answer about warnings that are not universal. Let me ask you a different question. We all pay a lot of attention to your President. You are aware of that. We watched him express some disquiet, some upset over pictures of starving children in Gaza. When understand he doesn't like it. Why doesn't he make it stop? MIKE HUCKABEE: I think that the President has done more than anyone else I know to stop it. He was the one who authorised us to create the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, to start feeding people. He gave us two directives, Sarah. He gave us one, get food to people who are hungry. Two, give it to them in a way where Hamas cannot steal it or loot it and turn it into a commodity that they can sell, which they have been doing, to the tune of $500 million last year. So the President has been very clear what he wants to see done. I just wish people would recognise that the real reason for any deprivation in Gaza and starvation that may be happening is because Hamas has taken control of the food. This morning, I got the reports that of the UN food that goes in, as of this week, 91.5 per cent of food was stolen or looted. SARAH FERGUSON: We are running out of time but I am going to jump in there because I need to say something to the audience which is that since that organisation took over there, there has been a fundamental change in the way that aid is distributed inside Gaza. There are now only four centres. There were 400. There is only one crossing, one road in and more than 1,000 people have been killed while seeking that aid. But the issue here, I'm afraid here, is that we're running out of time. Ambassador Huckabee, I'm very grateful for the time that you've given us. Thank you for joining us. MIKE HUCKABEE: Thank you, Sarah. SARAH FERGUSON: Thank you.
