Australians have a fixation on interest rates, but the former Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens has speculated that this may be due to a lack of other topics to discuss. Stevens, now the head of Macquarie Group, previously incited the ire of the Howard government when the independent Reserve Bank of Australia lifted its cash rate target just before the 2007 election. In recently released transcripts from an RBA historian, Stevens admitted that he still lacked a clear reason why interest rates become such a subject of political discussion in Australia.
The UK and the US both have floating rate mortgages and yet interest rates are not nearly as politically contentious as in Australia. Stevens speculated that the lack of serious topics to cover in the media, leading to an overemphasis on interest rates.
These statements were made by Stevens in an interview conducted in February 2024. Stevens also touched upon the decision to not lower interest rates to zero despite persistent low inflation due to fears of overly inflating asset prices. It was also noted that the inflation targeting framework was effective for two decades but faced criticism during the 2010s for possibly contributing to an overheating of the property market.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/sep/01/australia-well-served-by-rba-inflation-band-but-monetary-policy-impact-may-now-be-exhausted-ex-governors-say
