Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Lowe is speaking from his appearance at the Australian parliament's Senate Select Committee on COVID-19

Earlier:

More now:

  • going forward fiscal policy will have to play a greater part than in the past
  • rates to stay this low for some years
  • tax system is not optimal for growth, needs reform
  • says indicator monitoring most closely is hours worked
  • would want to see reasonable increase in hours worked in July and Qugust
  • does not see borders open again this year on substantial scale
  • says strong demand for Australian govt debt
  • says government has ability to borrow more and to find projects to invest in
  • says negative interest rates are extraordinarily unlikely
  • negative rates come with a cost to financial system
  • says don't think negative rates work
  • if we had to do more QE, could purchase more govt bonds
  • at moment do not see need to do any more QB
  • says banks have only borrowed a$5bln from RBA under loan scheme
  • says governments must borrow from markets and not from central banks