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Interest Rates: Reserve Bank Maintains Monetary Policy Settings

Jul 06, 2021

At its latest meeting, the Reserve Bank of Australia board has maintained existing monetary policy settings.

Meeting, as usual, on the first Tuesday of the month, the Board decided to:

  • retain the April 2024 bond as the bond for the yield target and retain the target of 10 basis points
  • continue purchasing government bonds after the completion of the current bond purchase program in early September. These purchases will be at the rate of $4 billion a week until at least mid November
  • maintain the cash rate target at 10 basis points and the interest rate on Exchange Settlement balances of zero per cent.

The media release from Governor Philip Lowe is shown below.


Washington Post: A Video Timeline From Inside the Capitol Siege

Jan 17, 2021

The Washington Post has published this reconstruction of the events of January 6, 2021, at the Capitol, Washington DC.


Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos Resigns

Sep 26, 2020

The Victorian Minister for Health, Jenny Mikakos, has resigned.

Mikakos announced her resignation in a statement posted on Twitter at 9.32am. The statement appears below.

Her resignation follows Premier Daniel Andrews’ appearance at a public hearing of the Hotel Quarantine Inquiry yesterday. Andrews said Mikakos and the Health Department were “accountable” for the decision to employ private security guards at hotels involved in the quarantining of people arriving in Melbourne from overseas.

Mikakos [Read more…]

PM – 20th Anniversary Program

Sep 23, 2020

The ABC radio program PM has been a staple program since I was a schoolboy.

I think I began listening to it in 1972, possibly in 1971. Its coverage of the massacre at the Munich Olympics sticks in my memory. Those were the days when news and current affairs was what we now call “appointment” broadcasting. The programs that accompanied breakfast, lunch and dinner were the times you found out what was happening in the world. No internet, no 24-hour television, no mobile phones, no social media.

Throughout my life, PM has been ever-present, one of the essential programs I turned to, not just in times of momentous events, but on a daily basis. As a university student during the Whitlam and Fraser years, and as a teacher through four separate decades, it was vital, not just personally, but professionally. For me, teaching English, Politics and History always required an up-to-date grasp of current events. Everything is relevant.

For many years, I listened to it in the car. The years began with Huw Evans as host, and then Paul Murphy, with Monica Attard and Ellen Fanning preceding the arrival of Mark Colvin. I loved it when a 5pm edition began on Radio National, with the local radio version continuing after the 6pm news. The duplication enabled me to leave work at different times and still listen to the whole program, albeit out of order.

Like many, I appreciated the authority and knowledge of Colvin. He made the program his. It is no reflection on him or any of the other hosts, but Evans will always be the voice of PM for me. Perhaps it was the November 11, 1975 live broadcast that did it. [Read more…]

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