The minutes from the June 6 Reserve Bank of Australia monetary olicy board meeting

  • Appropriate to keep accommodative stance of policy unchanged
  • Watching labour and housing markets carefully
  • RBA Board discussed how financial stability affected monetary policy, reviewed experience in US and Sweden
  • Important to maintain close cooperation with other regulators, especially APRA
  • House prices rising briskly in some markets, tentative signs pressure starting to ease
  • RBA Board members noted would take time for tighter bank lending standards to impact housing market
  • Low household income growth, high debt posed risks to outlook for consumption
  • Wage growth to remain low for some time, noted isolated reports of higher pay deals
  • Recent faster pace of jobs growth to continue, but underemployment still high
  • Board still expected GDP growth to accelerate to 3 pct over time, despite soft Q1
  • Liaison suggested retail conditions remained challenging
  • Repeats a rising A$ would complicate economic adjustment
  • Magnitude of bank levy not particularly large compared with typical movements in funding costs

Quick headlines via Reuters

Full text is here: Minutes of the June 2017 Monetary Policy Meeting of the Reserve Bank Board

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At the same time we got data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the Australian house price Index, Q2 of 2017:

  • +10.2% y/y
  • +2.2% q/q