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Thursday, 22 March 2012
Page: 3964

Mr CIOBO (Moncrieff) (10:53): by leave—Mr Acting Deputy Speaker Leigh, how apt that you should be in the chair. I rise to second, in many respects, the comments that were made by the chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics. Of course, the committee did undertake its most recent review of the annual report of the Reserve Bank, and it was interesting to hear the Reserve Bank governor's testimony in a range of areas.

Unlike the Labor Party, members of the coalition take the view that Australia's good fortune is not a consequence of brilliant economic stewardship by the Labor Party nor a consequence of the fiscal policy settings that the Labor Party has put in place. Rather, it was—in the view of the coalition members, and we sought to verify views on this with respect to economic stewardship—a legacy issue of the former coalition government. That is not to say it has all been bad, but the evidence, very clearly, from the Reserve Bank is that much of Australia's ongoing economic success, much of the resilience of the Australian economy, much of the strength of the Australian economy, flows from the fact of our geographic location more than it does from any brilliance by the current Treasurer.

In that respect, the testimony from the Reserve Bank governor was clear: Australia will continue to have economic challenges in the future as we undertake a very significant period of structural reform across the Australian economy. An inflated Australian dollar, in comparison to the situation historically, will continue for some time. We will continue to see pressures being placed on banks with respect to their funding costs and, in addition, there will need to be continual revisions of interest rates and the official cash rate by the Reserve Bank with respect to trying to get the balance right for Australia going forward and balancing the issue of inflation with, of course, economic growth.

Taking all those matters into account, there was also some questioning by the member for Casey of the Reserve Bank on a couple of outstanding issues with respect to Securency, and it was good to clarify those matters as other members of the committee have previously.

All in all, the committee members from the coalition side were grateful to the Reserve Bank governor for his continued cooperation with the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics. We were grateful, too, to the committee secretariat for all of their assistance and hard work. And like the chairman of the committee, we are certainly pleased to congratulate Dr Philip Lowe on his ascension to the position of deputy governor and to thank Mr Ric Battellino for his contribution over a number of years as he steps down and retires as deputy governor.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Dr Leigh ): I call the member for Parramatta to move that the House take note of the report.