Reserve Bank governor apologises for interest rate comments

The Reserve Bank governor has apologised to Australians who acted on the RBA’s flawed guidance that rates would not rise until 2024.

Speaking on Monday, Philip Lowe said he was “certainly sorry if people acted on what we’d said and now regret what they had done”.

Senior economics correspondent for The Age, Shane Wright, says even when it became clear financial markets were picking up and it was likely a rate rise sooner than expected would be on the horizon, the RBA assured Australians it would wait.

“It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility but that was not how it was couched by the reserve bank,” he told Ross and Russel.

“Even early February, there was a clear signal ‘Yep, we’re going to wait’.

“He (Lowe) said it more than once and plausible didn’t often appear in the commentary. It was always couched in ‘Well the bank thinks inflation is going to be subdued, it won’t be in our target range for some time, it has to stay there for some time, and then we want to see really solid wages growth and then we think, yep, we’ll be kicking off some rate rises, don’t expect it ’til 2024.”

Press PLAY below to hear Mr Wright’s view on the RBA’s actions