The RBA hurts Australians. We deserve better.

We, the undersigned, call on the Treasurer, the Australian Commonwealth Government and its Parliament to bring the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and its Board under the full control and remit of the Treasury and to seek more reasoned and humane methods to manage inflation.

Australians are at a breaking point. The current policy to increase the cash rate as an inflation management tool is severely hurting Australian workers and those who are most vulnerable.

The RBA’s rate hikes exacerbate this sustained cost-of-living crisis, sending more Australians into debt arrears, forcing households to take out high interest private debt for necessities, while many use food banks to feed themselves and their families, among many more desperate measures. Mortgage holders cannot afford the rate hikes passed on in full to their over-stressed budgets. Young people cannot afford rent and an entire generation has been priced out of owning a home.

The RBA’s rate hikes also make income inequality and social desperation worse. Income inequality and poverty exacerbate family and interpersonal violence and lead to increased crime rates. 

These cost-of-living pressures are creating severe political division, threatening our democracy and many are losing hope for the future. The increase in the cash rate has catastrophic impacts on those who work for a living and has destroyed any concept of a “fair go”.

Additionally, the RBA’s inflation management tool of using rate hikes has come under extensive scrutiny given global events and large corporations have been shown to be largely primarily responsible for inflation, as is well-documented after the COVID pandemic.

Many alternative and evidenced-based methods to manage inflation have existed for some time, as Australia has used in its past. Options exist that directly manage inflation, such as: targeting profiteering and price-gouging, ensuring energy sovereignty, restricting credit to socially damaging industries, ensuring public provision and ownership of essential needs and core sectors, and more. We have much better options and it’s time we used what works rather than something that was never capable of actually managing inflation.

Australian workers cannot bear the cost of the RBA’s “inflation-management” tool that is ill-equipped, ideological, and punitive.