Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The New South Wales Treasurer came out with this little gem yesterday. He called on the federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, to prevent the Reserve Bank from increasing interest rates. He said, ‘The federal government has the power to intervene against the RBA and, as I have said on many occasions, he ought to exercise that power.’ I called this one of the great feats of economic ignorance—saying that the federal Treasurer, the federal government, ought to undermine the integrity and independence of the Reserve Bank, which has been one of the cornerstones of Australia’s economic policy over the last 10 years. There you have the New South Wales Labor Treasurer, who does not support the independence of the central bank, who has called for federal government intervention and who does not understand how monetary policy is conducted in this country. The Labor Party never supported the independence of the Reserve Bank when they were in office. It was one of the great economic reforms that we put in place in 1996. We will not be moving off it. We will not be giving in and surrendering that important plank of economic policy. It ill behoves anybody in the Labor Party to be arguing to the contrary.

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