Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The Reserve Bank and the governor—in their minutes today—are saying nothing different from what they have consistently said for a long period of time, and that is that interest rates, at their 50-year emergency lows, could not stay there forever. Those opposite have been running around the country trying to pretend that somehow they could and that there would not be a withdrawal of monetary policy stimulus by the Reserve Bank at any time in the future. They hate the fact that our economy has begun to grow. They simply dislike that because the one thing that they wanted, when they came into this parliament in February this year and voted against our Nation Building and Jobs Plan, was higher unemployment and they wanted it for base political purposes. They therefore resent the fact that our fiscal stimulus, working hand in glove with the monetary policy stimulus from the Reserve Bank, has produced one of the most outstanding results in the world. That is what they resent, and therefore they then go on to perpetrate a fiction that there is somehow some conflict between the Reserve Bank governor and the board and their minutes with government policy. There is nothing in these minutes that says anything other than the Reserve Bank is beginning to unwind monetary policy stimulus because the economy is beginning to grow. It is that simple. Of course fiscal policy and monetary policy are both working together. And the other thing that they refuse to admit is the fact that fiscal policy reached its peak in June this year and it will subtract from growth in every quarter of next year. But the reason they will not admit that is that they have got a policy of withdrawing stimulus—

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