Panel participation Panel Participation at the Barrenjoey 4th Annual Australia Economics Forum

It’s unlike any session I have hosted before, and of course, it’s a question that matters, well should matter to everyone in this group. Central bank communication is more than just communication. It is a policy tool, it shapes expectations, it moves markets, and frankly, it makes my life day to day difficult. Central banks, sit on a wide spectrum. That spectrum is probably wider now than we’ve seen in a long time. On one hand, we’ve got the Bank of Canada, publishes no minutes, no voting record. We’ve got the Bank of England that publishes attributive votes, names the dissenters, and has same day minutes. We’ve got the RBNZ recently introduced attributed votes, and the Fed, of course, as we’ve seen this morning, for those of you that are up at 4:00AM, under a new chair Warsh, moving arguably in the opposite direction.

So the RBA sits somewhere in the middle, the 2023 review recommended strengthening the bank’s strategic communication capability. And included, in many ways, the catalyst for today’s discussion, the appointment of a Chief Communications Officer, Sally Cray. Some of you, I’m sure you’ve all read her work, but many of you may not have met her in person. The review, of course, drove many important changes and many of those changes have been welcome.

But the question for investors and economists is whether these reforms, which were designed to improve transparency, have in practice delivered that, or whether it’s actually harder to read the RBA day to day. And so to work through that, we’re going to hear from the person who sets the strategic communications, but also I’m joined by Jonathan Shapiro, who would be familiar to all of you, obviously, from the AFR. As I said earlier in the introduction, we do have the full bios of everybody on the portal agenda. So I won’t run through them, but they’re both incredibly credentialled people to be talking about these two issues. Johnny’s not so sure, but I’m sure he is.

It’s just because I’m in a room with most of the people I lean on for all my insights, so it’s really awkward. I’m rebounding them back to the room.

Oh, no, this is a great opportunity. So for all of you that have received a difficult question from Johnny, all have felt slightly unimpressed by the write-up. Here’s your opportunity for revenge. I would say the most terrifying panel for economist is one moderated by an economist, but now you’re going to face a thing that you talk to.

Okay, so as with previous panels, I’ve got a few questions I’m going to ask and then we’re going to leave plenty of time to open it up, so make sure that you pick your questions and take the opportunity to ask questions for both our panellists. So there’s obviously been a lot of communication, Sally, since you joined the RBA, the review called for a focus on improving the public understanding. And of course, households are a very different audience from markets, media, parliaments. Andrew Charlton talked a bit about this as well. So my question, the first one is for you, Sally, which is when you’re preparing communications around policy decisions, are some channels prioritised for some audiences?

Yes. Hi, Jo. Thanks, everyone. I’ve only been at the RBA for 2.5 years, so I came once the review had landed, so I’m not very good at speaking about what happened before, but there’s a lot of people in the room who were in the bank to tell you what it was like before. But look, when I came to the bank I had a lot of discussions with the Governor before she hired me, and obviously she’s been there for 40 years, and I think something that the bank became very aware of, certainly during that inflation uptick after COVID, was that we didn’t have an established conversation with the public and that needed to change. And obviously the review bore that out. So now we do think about our comms differently.

In terms of different audiences, I think the statement that we put out after the decision, we always think that’s for the markets. That’s not for mums and dads at home. It’s designed as a piece of comms for the market to understand what the Board discussed, why they made the decision and what do they think about the outlook. We did take a long time to decide what to do with the press conference. I know a lot of other central banks have economists in attendance but really the Governor wanted the press conference to be her conduit explaining to people at home what the decision was and why the Board made it. So, the press conference really is something that we direct towards to the media and through them to the public. Obviously, I’m not saying to the market don’t listen because you’ll glean a lot from her remarks, but really the press conference is for the public.

Well, we all dial in. I can assure you of that. Okay, so I want to take everyone back to a specific moment in time that perhaps was uncomfortable for everybody in this room. Panellists and non-panellists alike, which, of course, is July last year. The market had priced a 90% probability of a cut, the Board held 6 to 3, So, Johnny let’s throw to you. You’re in the press conferences, you speak to the market. In your view, did that feel like a communication gap or a misstep by the markets?

I’m glad you brought that up because I think there’s so much of that day that’s instructive about how the RBA has changed, how the relationship between the market and the RBA and the media, whether it’s a triangle, you know, however that relationship worked, it has certainly changed. For my mind, when I came to the AFR in 2009 and Alan Mitchell was there and there was this whole, you know, he had this aura about him and I just wanted to be close to him because I could sort of learn just from being close to him and there was this reputation around you know, his voice and the channels the RBA spoke to, the whisperer and the AFR was very much part of the market’s infrastructure, which I was very excited and proud to be a part of.

I think that day in July changed everything. I think we can maybe discuss later if it’s changed for the better or the worse, but it certainly changed everything. All the commentary that came out that day post that decision was why did the RBA not guide the market closer to where it should have been? And I think it’s interesting. I can’t recall precisely, but I think a lot of economists felt that it could have been a cut, but we hadn’t read anything in the papers or got any taps on the shoulder, so therefore, they were almost faked out of their actual call by years of genuine experience. But whether it was a communication misstep, I think is very, again, it’s very interesting and I wrote down a few points because there’s so many interesting things that I thought. I think, and I don’t know if Sally will be able to confirm all this or not, but maybe one mistake was the Hauser podcast. There was a bit of confusion around that, you know, Andrew Hauser went on a podcast and the timing in the lead up to that, there was a view amongst commentators and more market commentators and that this was strategically timed, and therefore, I think the antennas were particularly high and maybe that was misguided. The 50 basis point comment at the previous press conference. I also think a factor I don’t know, but I think July holidays was a factor. I think, you know, some of our esteemed commentators at the AFR were on breaks, and perhaps no one was picking up that maybe the pricing wasn’t quite right. I think it’s also noteworthy that James Glenn from the Dow Jones wrote a very good column and I genuinely speculate, I don’t know the answer to this, but was he just insightful? And I think, you know, how much was insight versus just a lot of it his genuine insight and experience.

And I think talking to economists, I think he formed that view. So it wasn’t like there was no signal. I mean, all that together created the situation where it was wrong. The other thing I should mention, Andrew, you pointed this out, is that, you know, the market pricing can be a little bit distorted by bank hedging. So, you know, we take that percentage as gospel, as a true, you know, wisdom of the crowds, but it’s not entirely, and maybe we need to, as the media, and I wrote an article a few days after that. I don’t know if the RBA knew this or not, but I sort of tried to make the point that, you know, like the probabilities are not the actual gospel, and we should take that into account.

I think a broader question is how much does it matter if the market gets sideswiped? That’s maybe something we can chat to later and Andrew Hauser and Sarah Hunter were in the press conference and afterwards we spoke to them because it was such a dramatic, interesting day. And Hauser pulled out his phone and he showed the three-year bond rate, which I think hadn’t actually moved all that much. So, he had a view that it wasn’t like massively disruptive, because in the broad scheme of things, you couldn’t get a more extreme interest rate misdirection, but overall, the market seemed to be able to absorb it and, you know, and the three-year view hadn’t changed.

I mean, it’s a little bit uncomfortable to acknowledge, but we had a hold right up until five days before the meeting and then we folded. So perhaps there’s a lesson, as you said, in there for economists. One of the criticisms from investors is that the Board no longer has a channel to push back on market pricing. The Governor talks for the Governor, not for the Board. So, Given what Johnny’s just talked about, Sally, have you reviewed last July from a communication policy? Were there learnings from that, that you’ve taken onboard, or did you think it all went okay?

First of all, I think everyone needs to remember that the Board has a mandate. That’s what’s enduring. So when they make decisions, they make decisions for the mandate, not for the market. So I think that’s the first thing I’d say. The second thing I’d say is, look, something that we did definitely talked about afterwards, and we hope we’ve made this change, is that after each data print now we try to get out and tell you how we’re seeing it. I think what was happening back in July 2025 is we were seeing it one way; you were seeing it another. We could see that there was a difference, and we didn’t come out and tell you how we were reading the print.

Now that’s not to say that we see it better, that is not what it’s about. We just think it’s our responsibility, as we are trying to be transparent, we should come out after each data print and tell you this is how we see it and then let you guys make your decisions and make your judgements based on that. So certainly now what we try to do, and it’s a bit easier too, with the rhythm of the meetings now as well. That there’s time for us to get out between a data print and before a blackout. Sometimes it’s impossible. But we do try to come out after a data print to let you know how we’re seeing it, especially if it’s different to our forecast, that’s really important.

So, Sally, can I just ask you then, we had two speeches by Board members, Board members that are leaving the Board. So I’m not sure if that was a deliberate trial, but do you think you’re going to roll that out? Do you think rolling that out can help fill the gap that investors perceive? Do you think it can help investors be more informed about the range of views on the Board? That’s what we see typically offshore if we look at the Bank of England or the Fed, different model, but perhaps same concept.

I think definitely a different model. I think that’s actually something really important to remember. These guys are not full-time. They don’t have staff, they don’t do their own forecasts. So they’re not the BoE and they’re not the Fed. So that’s something really important. I know everybody’s very anxious to put them in a dove or hawk column, but that’s just not how it’s going to be. I have the privilege of sitting in the Board meeting and, as an Australian, I’m very proud of the conversations that they have. They all take it very seriously. They have incredible backgrounds. I think the mix of academic economists, business economists and people with experience in the markets. I mean, it’s an incredible mix of people and they all have a different view and they change their view.

I think it’s wrong to sort of start thinking that they’re going to give you a fixed view, as I say, we have a very different model and it’s just not going to be like that. But they are all getting out there more, they absolutely want to get out there more. They certainly want to listen more. I think that’s something that they’re very keen to do, get out and hear from communities. They set economic policy, and communities are living it, so tell us how it works for you and your community. I don’t think it was a plan that we put Ian and Carolyn out first, but they’ve got the most experience. So, I think they were prepared to be first cab off the rank in that respect.

That sounds like a comms spin. So, it’s so Johnny, do you think this idea of the Governor talks for herself, not for the Board? We typically hear from the Governor and the Deputy Governor. Do you think that is making it more difficult to accurately convey for you, as a reporter, where the policy decisions are going and how views and risks are shifting?

I don’t really have a strong view on this. I think, um, I think we’ve always heard from Assistant Governors and I think we’ve often tried to interview Board members and occasionally they grant an interview. So, I don’t think too much has changed and I think we like the diverse views and we still sort of assume maybe, incorrectly or correctly, that they’re singing from a relatively similar song sheet and you’re not going to have too much disagreement, which we love as journalists. We love tension and disagreement and drama. So we don’t need encouragement to try and find it. I don’t think it makes an enormous difference.

For those of you that know me, you know, I’m not typically one to talk about necessarily academic research, but there is a really cool piece of work out of ANU Crawford, some research just released a few weeks ago, that finds that longer, more complex central bank speeches are associated with lower household economic confidence. So this is about average households, mums and dads who apparently read central bank speeches. Interestingly, I thought, the research found that it’s the sentence structure, not the word choice that matters.

Now that’s households. Of course, in our world, many people in this room, as soon as a statement comes out, the first thing they do is a word, compare and contrast, they publish it, they put it on teams. I think it’s in the Fin Review quite often. What does that behaviour in markets do? How does that influence your communication strategy? Is it helpful that small changes get noticed? Or does it risk that sort of amplifying incremental shifts?

I think it’s important to remember there is a change here. So again, I wasn’t at the bank before, but the statement used to be from the Governor, and it used to go out after the Board meeting, and often the Board members didn’t even see it. But in this case, this is a Board statement. So the language is workshopped in the meeting. It’s obviously hard to write a press release by committee, but that’s my most enjoyable Tuesday job. But I think that just to keep that in mind in terms of how it’s written, it reflects Board member’s position. And as I said before, we’ve tried to make it more concise. We don’t want it to be a repeat of the SMP. We don’t want it to be a summary of the SMP. We want you to read the SMP. So that’s why in recent times it’s shorter because we’ve tried to make it just about the decision and what judgements they are making and what are the risks. So that’s the strategy behind the length.

But I mean, look, I think the compare and contrast is important. It’s a very old central bank tradition, but I would just say if we’re going to change our view on something, I’d like to think that it was obvious. I mean, sometimes I look at your side-by-sides and I can see a sea of red, you’ve taken out a whole red paragraph and there’s a new paragraph in there, and we do that on purpose. So I think when we do make a big change, you do see it. The tiny changes are less important, but definitely when the Board absolutely change their view about something, you know, and we hope we make it clear.

Okay, so, Johnny, you’re in the press conferences, which of course every economist in this room would love to be in. You’re also in the SMP lockup from time to time. You’re also comparing, contrasting every word that changes. I know you are. So, how has your day-to-day reporting changed? You know, is it easier, harder?

I mean, it’s I think it’s like a circadian rhythm that everyone’s had to change. The monthly meetings, the Tuesday decision days were tough to get a story out because you were doing, you really just have the statement to work with and then it changes to the forecast, and then you’re getting around for reaction and hopefully trying to get more insights into the decision and then every quarter would be the statement of monetary policy. I think what’s what changed for us is the first or second lockup we had for the Statement of Monetary Policy. We read it word by word and we wrote a whole story, but it has a useful news life of zero seconds because as soon as it’s published, the statement comes out and we all sat there thinking, I can’t remember the direction of it, we’re like, wow, this is an extremely hawkish SMP, and then the Board statement came out as very dovish, so we’re like, right, we’re going to read the SMP now just for interest.

So that may be not from an important point of view, but from a news value point of view, the Statement of Monetary Policy has taken a backseat because you have this, you know, the decision statement and the press conference. It’s certainly, it’s probably put the media, the journalist more in the spotlight, which is probably why I’m sitting here, where I’ve not even got invited because in the past, we would, we would just go along to every public speech, you know, whether it was in Perth or Sydney or, and we would make sure that one of the reporters got a question. That’s completely changed. Now we, we’re almost out of politeness trying not to ask too many questions at the public speeches. I think and we’re also even directed not to, which is fair, I don’t really have a problem with that. Every meeting it’s up to the press corps, for lack of better word, to come up with questions and maybe it’s just me, but it’s quite a responsibility. You know, where they’re 12 or 15 journalists that have the access to be in that room and we know everyone in the market is watching. We feel that more than people watching at home, so we all go there with different objectives. We try and get as many questions as we can from people in the market, then all the AFR journalists sit there and try to work out, like, what’s the, the best question? It’s easy to ask a question. It’s not easy to craft one to a point where the Governor, and Michele’s good at it, but so was Glenn Stevens and Phil Lowe, being able to deal with a question that you think is very sharp and forces them into a corner to make some sort of comment about incremental direction of monetary policy. It’s not that easy.

I think I’ve been doing it for 14 years. I think my strike rate is probably three good questions. I sit down and go, that was a good one, I nailed that one. And as a Governor is speaking, I’m like, wow, I really got it. I think I’ve maybe felt that 2 or 3 times, to be frank. Sometimes it’s sort of some of the more cringer questions that actually elicit a better response from the Governor. So sometimes I’m sitting there like with my head in my hands going, this is so embarrassing and the Governor actually answers. So that’s something that came through in COVID. You know, a lot of the public got to see press conferences and they saw how annoying the journalists were. But they sort of forgot how effective they were in getting the response.

So there’s a bit of that at the press conference, but overall, even though it’s been made clear to us, it sounds like an order, but it’s sort of been suggested to us that the purpose of the press conference is for the Reserve Bank to speak to the broader public. We still feel a responsibility to the to the public and the financial markets to sort of make as best use of that as possible. And I think over time, we’ve gotten collectively better. We’re all doing our own thing, but I think collectively, I’d like to think we’ve gotten better at that. At the same time, it’s healthy every now and again, we find it healthy to get the economists to ask questions directly.

So that’s an open invitation. Send your questions to Johnny and he’ll try and get them answered. I just want to extend this line of thinking a little bit more because economists are maybe investors, but economists feel like they’ve got less opportunity to ask questions of the Governor and the Deputy Governor. In particular, obviously saying this in the week of Anika where there was that opportunity. I did recently attend Chris Kent’s speech, which was obviously hosted by the RBA. It was on quite a technical type of topic. I think the economists asked some good questions. I would suggest. So, Sally, I’m going to hear how you and Chris felt that went, is this something that we can expect more of as a channel, a way for economists to get in there on those more technical issues, less of interest amongst mums and dads?

We do think about this a lot, and we get a lot of feedback from people about access to asking questions. I thought I’d just make a note, yesterday Michele did speak at an event with a lot of economists. And we asked the journalists not to ask questions necessarily there because they do get the press conference, so we always try to give the audience more of an opportunity in those events in her Q&A. I’ll just say this to the room. I think out of all the questions she asked, three or four questions were about forward guidance. She’s not going to answer it. She’s told you so many times. She’s not going to give you forward guidance. So I’ll just leave that there in terms of thinking about what kinds of questions you ask her.

We obviously speak to the markets a lot of ways. We do briefings with them, a lot of our senior people go and have roundtables with participants. You know, we have our monetary policy implementation team that live in our domestic markets area who hear from you all the time, that obviously comes back to us, so we get a feel about what you’re saying and what you’re thinking about our comms. So, we do hear and have good conversations, but we’re always thinking about ways to do it more, absolutely. And we had really great feedback about that session with Chris. So we’re going to actually do that a bit more. Host events ourselves, invite market participants to come into our office, or online with Slido to ask questions if you’re not based in Sydney. We’re going to do that a bit more and hope that ensures market participants feel they have access and they can ask as many questions as they want.

Watch your inboxes for those invites. I’ve got a whole heap of questions, but I’m really conscious of time. So very happy to open it up to questions. Lots of hands going up.

Questions about the central bank communication side, and if there is any efforts shifting inside the bank in terms of how communication goes out to LLMs and AI and those sorts of things, like, how are you thinking about like everybody throws a statement through a sentiment indicator and those sorts of things, is that consideration around that is the one question. And the other question is, any views on regularising or kind of formalising the communication around liaison?

Yes. Great question. Well, we always have a section in our SMP from our Liaison Program, and obviously internally, the bank liaison teams insights and analysis have a big weight on our thinking and it also goes to the Board. So yes, that is important.

In terms of the LLMs, I mean, I was, it’s interesting you should say that. Yes, we are all thinking about that. I wouldn’t say we’re dedicated to that issue right now, but what we are looking at right now is, this whole misinformation and disinformation landscape. I speak a lot to my central bank colleagues, other Chief Comms Officers. We’re all having real trouble with people taking footage of our Governors, and in our case Michele and using it for her to say, “buy Bitcoin”. And, you know, obviously that’s terrible and it’s awful and we’ve got to fix it. But it’ll be worse when it’s a deep fake saying, “get your money out of the bank, get it out now, go now”. So, you know, we’re all very worried about that and deepfakes are getting harder and harder to detect.

Through the BIS (Bank for International Settlements), we are looking at this and all central banks are grappling and thinking about how we manage this new challenge. How actually are we going to deal with this problem? I could go to the ACCC every time there is an investment scam about Michele and put something up on their website to say, “this is a scam” but then does that erode what Michele says? Does that mean when Michele actually says something we need people to hear, that people will stop listening to her? It is a real conundrum. I’m sure it’s the same for CEO’s of your institutions as well.

The spokespeople for foreign central banks, such as the Bank of England or the Fed, seem to have an incentive to be thoughtful and informative, whereas the incentives of the Reserve Bank’s spokespeople, seem to be that their communication should be bland and vacuous. Why is that? And do you think it’s a good thing?

Well, that’s a very interesting question. I don’t think it’s bland and vacuous now. I think our spokespeople are very thoughtful. I mean, right now Brad Jones in particular is talking about some really tough issues, in terms of geopolitics and the financial system and how we manage that, things like cyber attacks, mis and dis information. Andrew’s obviously a very different communicator to Michele and Chris. I’m not sure your assessment is fair, but you’re very entitled to your opinion. I think that one of Michele’s greatest strengths is that she is such an authentic communicator. I would have loved to have had her when I worked in politics. I mean, she’s just a gift, you don’t have to teach her how to sound authentic and I think it’s actually a real plus especially for the community at the minute.

It’s important to remember there’s a lot of people in Australia, about age 40 and under who had never even heard the word inflation until recently. So we’ve got a whole generation of people that actually don’t even understand what’s happening in the economy. And I think the way Michele communicates, I think we’re very lucky to have her.

So the recent speeches by Carolyn Hewson or Ian Harper, my impression was it got absolutely zero press coverage. It was partly why I say, and I think that was deserved. I mean, the speeches were content free.

I’ll take that as a comment.

If there are different forms of communication and different objectives. And an interesting example is, I think, if you go back to the ECB under Duisenberg when he was President. And he was notorious that he wanted to minimise the surprise on the day of the announcement. And that effectively meant that you got the announcement a week before, when there would be a press conference, when there would be a speech, or there would be, you know, well-informed media article, shall we say? And all that did was move market volatility and like uncertainty to a different point in time. But by various metrics, you know, communication was apparently good. So I think that highlights one of the shortcomings of thinking about communication.

But ultimately what you want is that the market, the business community, understand the objectives of the central bank. And you should then actually be getting the response being to data releases. The news, information, not to central bank announcements. So in an ideal world, you actually have minimal reaction to central bank speeches, central bank announcements because everybody gets it. So the objective of communication under that perspective, which I would advocate for, is that people should actually understand how and why the central bank is doing things. That should be the objective of communication.

I think one critique of RBA communication now, and the changes since the review, could be that it is moved in a direction of retail communication, explaining the decisions rather than explaining the framework of the central bank. So, in other words, in economist parlance, the reaction function. You know, we get less structural speeches, we get less questions from economists, we get more press conferences and attempts to sort of simplify the SMP communication. How would you respond to that?

I think the mandate is the mandate. That’s what we’re there to do, and it always endures and that’s what we’re focussed on. We are trying to get out between data prints and say, this is how we’re seeing it. I think Phil used to give a lot more speeches, say than Michele does, but Michele also does eight press conference. Other spokespeople are out and about more, talking about current economic conditions and talking through what they’re seeing.

But I hear what you are saying. I mean, what we’re trying to achieve is that the data is more important than what we say. But I take your point and I’ll think about how we can address it, but how would you suggest we solve it?

I think it’s about what you say. So, you know, a criticism that I’ve heard people say is holding certain phrases within the SMP is not necessarily an improvement in communication. It’s about explaining why certain information was relevant in making a decision. So the explanation of the decision so that that is allowing the market, business community, journalists, to understand why the Reserve Bank responds to different types of information in different ways.

OK. In terms of before the meeting, I think what I would repeat what the Governor often says, people expect her to be able to get the Board to do what she wants. That’s not how she approaches a Board meeting. She wouldn’t front run the Board, she can’t say before a meeting “the decision is definitely going to be this”.

Obviously, our intention is not to surprise you. Our intention is not to play a got you game with you. That is not what we’re about. We’re trying to be transparent. The Governor has said before that every meeting is live. It seems to be a revelation, but it’s true. Every meeting is live. And sometimes the best thing is to have optionality for the Board, to be able to make the decision that they need to make. So you might think about that sometimes too when we speak in-between meetings.

You talk about messaging for economists and market participants. What about the messaging for, say, the Fair Work Commission, or for state governments, or federal governments? Because I actually think that’s actually, probably the most important part of the messaging, rather than market participants, because largely, you know, we’re going to conduct the same conversations with insurance companies and retailers, etcetera. So to what extent is that factored into the communication process?

Our Liaison Program has a lot of consultation with those kinds of people. So, we’re hearing from them, and we’re trying to explain the SMP, and we’re trying to explain the impacts of our decisions and how that shifts the economy or not. The Liaison Program plays an important role there and obviously the Governor speaks with State Treasurers and, you know, we have, roundtables with your companies, with government agencies as well. It’s a good question. I think my advice is I encourage everyone to read the SMP.

It’s more the message to be sent through the Fair Work commission, which, look, would seem as though it’s ignored. And, you know, in the message through the state governments and federal governments, as well, that doesn’t seem to have the meat on it, that, you know, to try and get the mandate.

I guess we can’t force them to listen harder.

On that point, so a person told me years ago when I started at the paper, this was their opinion on RBA communication. You went through various ways where different columnists seem to have the golden mug or whatever, that gave them the right or the market was forced to listen to them. And their theory, which I think is true to some extent, is that depending on who the RBA needed to communicate to, the anointed columnist changed. So when they had an inflation problem and they had to talk to the man on the street, Terry McCrann was the guy, when they were worried about the Australian dollar being too high, Mitchell was the guy, and maybe that’s where the media sort of comes into it.

And I’m going back to that July meeting, I think that was like a watershed moment. And it’s probably me because I think more carefully or spend way too much of my brain power thinking about communication and the media and everything, but there was a break in that, in that lineage where we, the media, I think we still remain part of the financial market, RBA infrastructure. It’s just changed, I think. And it’s now it’s sort of a more open battle of ideas. So where we had an advantage, now we just have an edge that we have to use, and I think, to your point it’s sort of up to the media, I guess, to transmit those messages to Governments, to the Fair Work Commission. Some sort of indirect channel, whether intentional or not, to try and interpret what the RBA is saying and put it into the public debate.

If I may be so bold as to ask you each a question. For you, Sally, what are the inhibitors to releasing the minutes on the same day as the meeting? And for you, Jonathan, try to phrase this as a question, rather a statement, the AFR has maybe been a leader in trying to ask the Governor, in particular, around government spending and the RBA’s reaction function. Is that the AFR trying to change government policy, or is it the AFR trying to encourage the Governor as, you know, essentially the most senior economist in our country, to potentially offer thought leadership to a debate about fiscal spending?

This is the first time I’ve felt Michele Bullock’s pain. I have a very sneaky way out of that question, which is that, at the Anika lunch yesterday a lot of economists were asking the exact same question, which means it’s not just the AFR that …(laughs). I guess the simplest way to answer is, let’s say AFR and others, I think all the media have asked these questions and we sort of know Michele Bullock knows what her answer is going to be.

But that’s the sort of public interest debate that we sort of have to air and it’s Michele Bullock’s choice in how she wants to answer it, but we sort of have an imperative to ask questions because I think that, you know, I think it’s a genuine question which the RBA I think has a view on. It’s sort of incumbent on us to prosecute that issue rather than form a view on it. And I mean, I guess the thing is that we just know Michele’s not going to answer it, wholeheartedly, but we still need to put it to her.

Why can’t we release the minutes on the same day? Well, first, the meetings are now two days, so we don’t want them to be formulaic. We want them to genuinely represent the discussion that was had over the two days. All of the members look at the minutes and check the minutes and make sure they accurately reflect the conversation. So I think the answer is, it’s logistics. We’re not trying to separate them, to drip feed you comms or anything like that. It’s not about that. What we try to do with the statement now is give you a short sharp, summary of the decision and why we made the decision, but often the conversation that goes around, it gives you a bit more flavour. And that just takes a bit more time.

Now, I knew this panel was going to be popular. We are out of time. So I hope everyone has learnt something, including you, Sally. I hope you find the little bit of feedback from the questions useful. So that’s it. Thank you both.