The most important reserve bank governor for Australia?

The wages position is interesting.

For example, the CFMEU, a construction union, just secured a wage deal for its workers in Western Australia of 25 percent over four years, consisting of an immediate 10 percent rise, followed by three years of 5 percent each. Signs for CFMEU and Metrotunnel can be seen on a crane in central Melbourne, Australia, on Oct. 30, 2023. (Susan Mortimer/The Epoch Times)

In a climate of negative productivity growth, that wouldn't seem to be consistent with inflation of 2 to 3 percent.

And it's not that the RBA isn't worried about productivity growth-it is, and the need for productivity growth is one of the themes that it is pushing heavily.

Clashing policies

One possible explanation for this seeming inconsistency could be that the RBA as presently constituted is one of the few institutional anchors deterring the federal government from enthusiastically implementing its radical agenda.

So the government is quietly combating it.

To negate the RBA's productivity pitch, they try to redefine the things that contribute to high productivity so that they even include higher wages.

This is to disguise the fact that so much of their legislative agenda is productivity-destroying, particularly in those areas where they have mandated higher wages.

That is putting the squeeze on services such as aged care and childcare, as well as turbocharging the growth in National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) outlays and other areas that compete for similar staff.

Their labour laws will also make it more expensive and risky for businesses to hire staff and drastically interfere with contract and gig work, leading to increased costs and inflexible and unresponsive workforces.

The government has also reintroduced the ability for unions to pattern bargain. And they've taken the brakes off the CFMEU by abolishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

This makes infrastructure, commercial and industrial developments, and housing more expensive, as well as spilling over into Australia's one really bright spot, the mining industry.