ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
The denizens of Betoota Heights have been put on notice by the Reserve Bank boss this week, telling them that the worst might not be over.
RBA Governor Dr Philip Lowe admitted that while the recent successive rate hikes were put on hold this month, they could continue again next month if people start spending frivolously in the economy once again.
“Oh no, there’s every chance you’ll lose your million-dollar Hotondo tent,” he said.
“If you keep spending your money in the economy on things you don’t need. Like on the way here, I kept seeing all these mouth-breathing property developers in those big American ‘trucks’. That just epitomizes why this economy is still too hot to touch. You just know they didn’t buy it with cash. The bank would own 90% of these still things. Depreciating quicker than a Frenchman’s welcome. Sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
“What I’m trying to say is please don’t take this rate pause as a sign to get further into debt. If we can all be sensible for a few years, you won’t lose your Meriton dogbox or your Hotondo tent. We will get through this. If you want to really help me out, do your online shopping with retailers based in New Zealand. Export our inflation.”
“The problem of inflation isn’t over. Think of inflation as a wild boar and I’m having to fight it with my Scotty Cameron putter. Ultimately, I’m going to win. Right? I’m from Wagga and I’m no uptown Turvey Park boy, either, so I’ve put a few pigs to the sword in my day. I’m confident that I can bludgeon this inflation pig to death, I just need you, the Australian people’s, help to do it.”
“Perhaps distract it so I can smash it between the eyes. But the best thing you can do is get the .30-30 lever-action out from behind the seat in the Triton and gut shoot it. What that looks like, economically, is you guys spending money sparingly and paying off debt. When this messed up war in Ukraine is over and China becomes friends with us again, then we can both shoot the inflation pig between the eyes. Cut the back legs off for the landowner’s dogs.”
“As one particular Attorney-General used to say when he ripped the top off his third bottle of red at lunch, ‘Res ipsa loquitur, officer!’. I think that’s an apt example of what we can expect when the world returns to normal. It’ll speak for itself.”
Dr Lowe then refused to answer any questions unless they were to do with The Masters.
More to come.
