Australia to Introduce Legislation to Overhaul Central Bank
- Changes follow independent review of Reserve Bank of Australia
- Legislation to cement the RBA’s dual price, employment mandate
The Reserve Bank of Australia in Sydney.
Photographer: Brent Lewin/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Australia’s government will introduce legislation this week to facilitate the largest overhaul of the central bank in a generation, including setting up a separate governance board and scrapping the treasurer’s power to reverse policy decisions.
The bill is the result of an independent review of the Reserve Bank that made 51 recommendations, some of which require modifications to the RBA’s operating law. It follows criticism in recent years ranging from the bank’s pre-Covid reluctance to cut interest rates to a pledge that they wouldn’t rise before 2024 and a messy yield-target exit — that damaged the institution’s credibility.