Ian Harper

But unless the ABS has got it wrong a couple of months in a row, these really double down on those figures and indicate that the jobs market is deteriorating.

Um, interestingly, I went to a speech from former Reserve Bank board member who, who finished up in August, Ian Harper, very eminent economist in Australia who'd been on the board for 10 years, and he spent a lot of that speech and the Q&A, uh, uh, well, it wa- it was a, a fireside chat with Michael Stutchbury, the former editor of the Financial Review.

Spent a lot of that chat and then the Q&A session really talking up the Reserve Bank's dual mandate, and a lot of economists have felt like maybe that dual mandate's, you know, inflation's now the clear priority and unemployment's been thrown out the window for now.

But he was at pains, and he, he's no longer on the board, but he's a very recent board member and probably on the more hawkish end of board members, pretty conventional economist.

Um, he really emphasized that there is a dual mandate and that the RBA board members are always considering the impact of what they do on the jobs market, and that the employment market and the inflation level are intricately linked through things like the non-accelerating inflation rate-

Yeah

... of unemployment and spare capacity in the economy, and not to underestimate how im- important employment is i- in that dual mandate system.

Mm-hmm.

Financial Review is reporting the RBA was caught off guard by inflation surge, says ex-member.

Former RBA board member Ian Harper acknowledged the RBA was caught off guard by the resurgence in inflation last year because it assumed the Australian economy could sustain more demand without generating price pressures.

Harper also said the central bank could raise interest rates again before the end of the year and was starting to give more weight to short-term inflation expectations in its cash rate decisions, a shift from its traditional approach.

Uh, it's, it's one of those things that people don't actually realize about the RBA.