The RBA has rejected a pre-Christmas bonus for Australian borrowers and left interest rates on hold.
The RBA’s decision to leave the cash rate at its 13-year high of 4.35%, announced on Tuesday, was widely expected by financial markets.
After the central bank raised interest rates 13 times between May 2022 and November 2023, mortgage holders and business owners are said to be expecting relief after loan repayments became a record share of income.
Calls for the RBA to begin cutting interest rates have intensified after Australia’s economic growth fell to an annualized pace of 0.8% in the September quarter, which has slowed considerably during the Covid pandemic since the early 1990s recession.
While many overseas have started to cut borrowing costs, RBA Governor Mitchell Bullock has said he needs to convince the board that inflation will remain “sustainably” low within its 2%-3% target range.
The consumer price index was 2.1% in October from the previous month, while underlying inflation – which the RBA closely monitors – rose to an annual clip of 3.5% from 3.2% in September. The most complete quarterly inflation data released in October reported CPI at 2.8% – the lowest in 3.5 years – with core inflation at 3.5%.
Bullock, who will hold his regular press conference in Sydney from 3.30am Aedt, has said the RBA wants to retain as much cash as possible from recent job gains and the economy has added more than 1m jobs since the Albanese government came to power within weeks of the first RBA rate hike of the cycle. It was revealed that there .
