Oct 6, 2026 · 5 min · 4 segments
Australia's latest interest rate rise is putting renewed pressure on mortgage holders, households and the property market. But with inflation data arriving after the Reserve Bank's decision, questions…
Terry RyderHost
Where do they find these people, these hard heartless bureaucrats to whom we're all just numbers on a spreadsheet? We're getting interest rate rises above almost anywhere else in the developed world because the people who make the decisions are more interested in data than in people, and because even people are seen as data points.
Reserve Bank Governor Michelle Bullock is obsessed with the numbers on inflation.
According to her, we the people don't like high interest rates, but she says we would dislike ongoing high inflation even more so.
I'm quite sure it's not from having conversations with ordinary people at street level, because the only time Bullock steps outside of the ivory tower is to address a business function at the big end of town.
Bullock and her chums on the Reserve Bank board are financial elites, people accustomed to earning more than $1 million a year without any real understanding what it's like to be an average income family with kids and a mortgage, with power costs and petrol prices and supermarket bills rising and rising.
So according to Bullock and the faceless bureaucrats on the RBA board, we're all better off with the latest interest rate rise that she has delivered.
I note from recent reports that Bullock believes Australia needs higher unemployment as well.
The current rate from the ABS is 4.6%, and according to Merciless Michelle, the unemployment rate needs to rise as high as 5% to rein in inflation.
Now, you would never know, listening to this bureaucrat pontificate, that unemployment is about actual people losing their jobs and being unable to afford food and rent.
None of that matters, so long as the economists and bureaucrats are happy with the numbers on the spreadsheet and how they gel with their economic theories.
Now, Bullock told a Committee for Economic Development of Australia event in Sydney, the kind of place where she's comfortable.
We needed more people out of work because according to their economic theories, that would ease pressure on inflation.
Where do they find these people, these hard heartless bureaucrats to whom we're all just numbers on a spreadsheet? We're getting interest rate rises above almost anywhere else in the developed world because the people who make the decisions are more interested in data than in people, and because even people are seen as data points.
Reserve Bank Governor Michelle Bullock is obsessed with the numbers on inflation.
According to her, we the people don't like high interest rates, but she says we would dislike ongoing high inflation even more so.
I'm quite sure it's not from having conversations with ordinary people at street level, because the only time Bullock steps outside of the ivory tower is to address a business function at the big end of town.
Bullock and her chums on the Reserve Bank board are financial elites, people accustomed to earning more than $1 million a year without any real understanding what it's like to be an average income family with kids and a mortgage, with power costs and petrol prices and supermarket bills rising and rising.
So according to Bullock and the faceless bureaucrats on the RBA board, we're all better off with the latest interest rate rise that she has delivered.
I note from recent reports that Bullock believes Australia needs higher unemployment as well.
The current rate from the ABS is 4.6%, and according to Merciless Michelle, the unemployment rate needs to rise as high as 5% to rein in inflation.
Now, you would never know, listening to this bureaucrat pontificate, that unemployment is about actual people losing their jobs and being unable to afford food and rent.
None of that matters, so long as the economists and bureaucrats are happy with the numbers on the spreadsheet and how they gel with their economic theories.
Now, Bullock told a Committee for Economic Development of Australia event in Sydney, the kind of place where she's comfortable.
We needed more people out of work because according to their economic theories, that would ease pressure on inflation.
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