Philip Lowe will on Wednesday give what is largely anticipated to be his last speech as the Reserve Bank governor.
Dr Lowe will address the Australian Conference of Economists in Brisbane, where he is expected to talk about the 51 recommendations handed down in the RBA review released earlier this year.
The review was launched in part because of concerns about the bank’s handling of monetary policy before the pandemic and recommended splitting the central bank into two boards to separately deal with interest rates and currency issuance.
The review also recommended the RBA reduce the number of times it met each year to propose changes to interest rates from 11 to eight.
While the review made no recommendations about the tenure or role of governors, Dr Lowe’s speech on Wednesday comes as an announcement on the future of the his position is expected within weeks.
Dr Lowe, who has served in the top job at Australia’s central bank for seven years, is set to be replaced come September.
While the government was presented with the option to extend his tenure out to 10 years – as was the case with his two predecessors – it’s widely anticipated someone else will be appointed to the role.
Current frontrunners are the finance department secretary Jenny Wilkinson, Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy and RBA deputy governor Michele Bullock.
There have been mounting calls for Dr Lowe to be replaced because of his comments – as late as late 2021 – that interest rates would remain at record lows of 0.1 per cent until at least 2024. Interest rates have risen to 4.1 per cent since last May.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who will make the announcement later this month, said he would take his recommendations to cabinet “soon”.
“This is a decision for the cabinet to take on my recommendation, and I take the role of the cabinet and the opinions of my colleagues very seriously,” Dr Chalmers said.
“This is one of the biggest appointments the government will make. It is a big job … and I am approaching it in a methodical and measured and considered and consultative way, which represents the magnitude of the decision that the government will take about the governor of the Reserve Bank.”
Dr Chalmers said he’d had a preliminary discussion with shadow treasurer Angus Taylor about the decision.
“We had one preliminary conversation and I’m up for another one if he and his colleagues would like to have one,” he said.
“We will appoint someone who has the necessary experience and expertise who can help bed down the recommendations of that really important RBA review.
Whether it is a Reserve Bank review or the appointment of the governor, our interest here is in ensuring we get the best possible central bank to take the country forward during really uncertain times for the global economy.”
Dr Chalmers and Dr Lowe will fly together to India this weekend for a G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors.
“He and I will work closely together to represent Australia’s interests in that forum and also to make our contribution to the big global conversation about how we safeguard our economies from inflation and some of the other typical pressures that we have, that we are all confronting in one form or another around the world,” Dr Chalmers said.
“What happens overseas has consequences here in Australia, and there are opportunities as well and the approach we have taken as a government is that we are always better engaging with the world on these big economic challenges we confront together.”