On Melbourne Cup Day, Australians were hoping for a rate cut.
However, due to the ‘Jimflation effect’, there are no winners in sight.
This leaves the average mortgage holder paying $1,800 more in interest per month than when the Coalition left office.
Last week, inflation smashed through the top of the Reserve Bank’s target band, just two weeks after unemployment overshot the Reserve Bank’s forecast.
Rising inflation and unemployment are a concerning combination.
Government spending is growing more than four times faster than the economy. It is at its highest level outside of recession in more than four decades.
This means the Albanese Government is out there in the economy competing with everyday Australian families for the basic resources they need to get by.
This is driving prices up.
Meanwhile, productivity – a precondition for higher wages without inflation – has fallen more than five per cent under Labor. The Reserve Bank has warned that weak productivity is a key reason it cannot deliver further rate relief.
Under Labor, Australia has had the biggest fall in living standards in the developed world.
Labor needs to do two things. It must stop the spending spree. Second, it must start growing the economic pie.
After 12 interest rate rises under Labor, there have been just three cuts.
By contrast, other countries like the UK, US, Canada, New Zealand and the Euro Area have reduced interest rates between five and nine times.
After today’s disappointing hold by the RBA, millions of Australian mortgage holders have been left wondering if interest rates are as low as they’ll go under Labor.
