Reserve Bank of Australia Annual Report – 1994 Community Relations

Information Services

In various ways, the Bank seeks to communicate its policy and other messages to the wider community. This is part of a deliberate effort on the part of the Bank both to help raise the level of understanding of monetary and banking issues and, more generally, to be publicly accountable for its actions.

The Governors and other senior officers have appeared before, and made submissions to, a number of Parliamentary committees during the year, including the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Banking, Finance and Public Administration. The Senate Select Committee on Public Interest Whistleblowing also discussed general matters related to banking with a senior Bank representative, while the Governor was called before the Senate Select Committee on the Functions, Powers and Operation of the Australian Loan Council. The Bank's submission to the Government's Committee on Employment Opportunities was published subsequently by the Bank as Occasional Paper 12, Towards Full Employment: Submission to The Committee on Employment Opportunities.

A steady flow of public addresses was given by senior Bank officers during the year, some of which were reproduced in the Bank's monthly Bulletin. The Bank's other publications in 1993/94 included Occasional Paper 10, Interest Rates and Yields: Money Market and Commonwealth Government Securities, Daily 1976 – 1993, 11 Research Discussion Papers, and the Proceedings of the July 1993 conference on The Exchange Rate, International Trade and the Balance of Payments.

Through its Economic and Financial Research Fund (EFRF), the Bank provided $14,000 in 1993/94 for university research projects in fields related generally to economics and finance. The Bank also made a contribution to the University of Melbourne's Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research towards the cost of a monthly survey of inflationary expectations.

Bank representatives addressed various groups of teachers and students, and some finance industry conferences and courses. Two senior officers appeared in an educational video on the Australian financial system, which was produced by the NSW TAFE (Technical and Further Education) in August 1993 and has been made available for purchase by schools and colleges.

The Bank was a sponsor of an exhibition at the Sydney Powerhouse Museum to commemorate Gordon Andrews' contribution to Australian and international design. Mr Andrews has a long association with the Bank, being the designer of most of the original decimal currency notes and a member of the design panel assisting with the polymer note series.

As required under the Equal Employment Opportunity (Commonwealth Authorities) Act 1987, the Bank's Annual Report on its equal employment opportunity program was tabled in Parliament in November 1993.

Contacts with Other Central Banks

In its relations with other central banks, the Bank's recent strong focus on the Asia/Pacific region has continued. The Governors participated in a number of high-level meetings in the region, including the SEANZA (South East Asia New Zealand and Australia) Council of Governors' meeting in Pakistan and the annual South Pacific Central Bank Governors' meeting in New Zealand, both in November 1993. Senior officers attended a number of major regional meetings, including the biennial EMEAP (Executives' Meeting of East Asia and Pacific Central Banks) in Japan in July 1993, and in Thailand in February 1994; the SEANZA Forum of Banking Supervisors in Japan in July 1993; the Pacific Rim Banknote Printers' Conference in Korea in October; the SEACEN (South East Asian Central Banks) Meeting of Directors of Supervision in Nepal in October; the Four Markets Meeting (involving also Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore) in Sydney in December and Singapore in June; and the Asia Pacific Congress of the Association Cambiste International in India in December.

Other major international meetings attended by Bank officers during the past year have included regular meetings of the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Asian Development Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Assistance through various forms of training was extended to other central banks in the region. Short-term training attachments to the Bank were provided for representatives from the National Bank of Cambodia, the People's Bank of China, the Reserve Bank of Fiji, the Bank of Papua New Guinea and the Bank of Thailand. Two officers from the People's Bank of China commenced a three-month training program in Head Office in June 1994, following a similar program early in 1993. Many shorter visits were made by representatives of central banks and other official overseas agencies.

The Bank's third post-graduate scholarship for the Bank of Papua New Guinea was awarded to an officer to undertake a Graduate Diploma in Science (Computing) at the University of Wollongong.

Staff were seconded for short periods to provide technical assistance to the Bank of Papua New Guinea, the Papua New Guinea Institute of Bankers, the National Reserve Bank of Tonga and Bank Indonesia. Staff also assisted in the presentation of training courses organised by the Central Bank of Samoa and the People's Bank of China, and in courses organised by the SEACEN Centre. In addition, senior officers participated in several IMF-funded missions to assist central banks. One of these projects involved the State Bank of Vietnam (where advice was offered on the establishment of a foreign exchange dealing function), while others involved central banks in two countries of the former Soviet Union (Moldova and Turkmenistan) and focused on aspects of accounting and payments systems. In September 1993, the Bank provided the Central Bank of the Lao PDR with a grant of US$25,000 for the purchase of computer equipment for its Research Department.

Freedom of Information Act

Section 8 statement

The Reserve Bank is an exempt agency under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 in respect of documents concerning banking operations (including individual open market operations and foreign exchange dealings) and exchange control matters.

Facilities for access and Freedom of Information procedures Inquiries under the Freedom of Information Act, including requests for access to documents, should be directed to the Secretary, Head Office, or to the Managers of branches or the General Manager at Note Printing Australia. Applications should be accompanied by the application fee (currently $30). Facilities to inspect documents to which access has been granted are available in the Bank's branches.

Organisation and functions The Reserve Bank is Australia's central bank. It was established by Commonwealth legislation in 1911. Its functions, powers and responsibilities are specified in the Reserve Bank Act 1959, the Banking Act 1959, the Financial Corporations Act 1974 and Regulations made under those Acts. Additional information is contained in the booklet Reserve Bank of Australia: Functions and Operations, which is available from all Bank branches.

Categories of documents Categories of documents available to the public are detailed in the Functions and Operations booklet. A list of publications, including speeches, articles, occasional papers, information booklets, conference volumes, regular media releases and other publications is published from time to time in the Bank's monthly Bulletin. Other documents held by the Bank are in the form of working notes and files on policy and operational matters, statistical data, personnel, premises and general administration.

Administration

Four requests for access to documents under the Act were received in 1993/94, compared with 17 in the previous year. All requests in 1993/94 were from staff and were granted in full. The cost to the Bank of administering the Act in 1993/94 is estimated to have been approximately $1,200, compared with approximately $29,200 in the previous year.