stupid tax decisions that hurt us lt, page-50

Rtic25,

Seriously, a significant proportion of Australia's aggregate mortgage debt is in fact offset by deposits.

"n aggregate, the stock of Australian households’
prepayment buffers is estimated to be equivalent to
over 10 per cent of the outstanding stock of housing
loans (Graph B1). This includes balances in mortgage
offset and redraw facilities. Flows into these accounts
include regular excess repayments and one-off
excess repayments paid out of salary bonuses or
other irregular income."

source (worth reading!): http://www.rba.gov.au/publications/fsr/boxes/2012/sep/b.pdf