Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

There is a concerted attempt by the Labor Party today to verbal the Prime Minister on his remarks on interest rates. The Prime Minister was quite properly pointing to the responsibility of the Reserve Bank to conduct monetary policy in an independent fashion that will ensure that inflation never gets out of control in the way that it did under the former Labor government, when Paul Keating proudly boasted that he had the Reserve Bank in his pocket and which resulted in interest rates of 17 per cent. It is quite proper for the Prime Minister to make the point that the last inflation figure was 3.9 per cent. That was heavily influenced, as we all know, by the increase in food prices that has resulted from the drought and Cyclone Larry and also heavily influenced by the price of transport fuel. Again, that is something beyond the government’s control entirely.