Facing a parliamentary inquiry,the Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock said current rate settings were still the most likely to bring inflation down without causing major economic problems.
NAB chief executive Andrew Irvine said cost-of-living pressures and high-interest rates continued to weigh down mortgage holders.
The central bank has come under attack over the past week. Here’s the thinking behind their latest comments.
While the unemployment rate increased to 4.2 per cent,the number of people holding down a job surged to a record 14.5 million.
The biggest company on the ASX is a critical bellwether for the economy. Beneath the bank’s headline $9.8 billion profit,a few points stood out.
Government Services Minister Bill Shorten has sharpened the government’s criticism of the Reserve Bank in a growing dispute over economic hardship and rising prices.
Wages have grown more than inflation for the third quarter in a row as jobs in the public sector posted the highest pay increase for the June quarter in 12 years.
The Reserve Bank has come under fire over interest rate settings,prompting RBA deputy governor Andrew Hauser to caution against economic “false prophets”.
The reliance on interest rates to reduce demand is hugely unfair – and it is lacking in effectiveness.
Bullock was in the choir,played hockey and was unashamed about her flair with numbers. But she worries high school economics is “slipping off the radar”.
Why didn’t the central bank care when panic swept across financial markets earlier this week? In short:because the sharemarket isn’t the economy – or a good indicator of its health.