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