The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) says its resolute in its determination to ensure high inflation across the country returns to the 2-3% target range, on the back of yesterday’s tenth rate rise of 0.25 of a percentage point to 3.6%.
RBA Governor, Philip Lowe has made an address at this year’s AFR Business Summit, saying the number one near-term economic challenge facing Australia is to make sure that the current high inflation of 7.8% is only temporary.
Mr Lowe says the challenge is one of the legacies of the pandemic, and of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and that the main tool for bringing inflation down is with interest rates, and has signalled there may be at least one more rate rise.
But it’s not all doom and gloom - over recent months, the unemployment rate has been around 3.5% - it hasn’t been this low since nearly 50 years ago.