Chalmers: will consider whether to reappoint Philip Lowe in mid-2023

AFR

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has said the federal government will consider whether to reappoint Philip Lowe as RBA governor in mid-2023.

A review into the Reserve Bank is due to be handed to the federal government in March. Various submissions to it will be made public on Friday.

“There’s been a lot of interest in the composition of the board, the relevant expertise at the bank, or the inflation targeting regime, how they balance the various objectives of full employment, the inflation target and all the rest of it. So it’s been a really, already, a really worthwhile process,” Chalmers told ABC RN Breakfast.

The treasurer said Lowe’s current term was up in September 2023 and that the federal government would decide whether to reappoint him in the middle of the year.

“We would ordinarily come to a view on that around the middle of next year. I’d consult the prime minister and the cabinet in the usual way.

“And obviously the Reserve Bank review in March will be relevant to those considerations, will feed into our thinking.”

Chalmers said it would be “strange” if, after receiving the review, he didn’t “factor in some of those conclusions in whatever we decide about the role of the governor”

“And not because we’ve asked for some kind of performance review of the governor, but because we want to learn from best practice and give the RBA the best structures and institutional settings we can for the decisions that they’ll make into the future.”

Asked to elaborate, Chalmers said the review would “guide the kind of Reserve Bank that we want and the personnel, the leadership, of the bank will clearly feel into those kinds of considerations”.

“In the normal course of events, when a big appointment like this is up in September of any year, you’d be thinking about consulting and concluding a view around the middle of the year. That’s not unusual that we would do that.

“And because we’ve got this really detailed RBA review underway, of course, the conclusions that they hand to me in March, which we’ll respond to at some point in the first half of next year, would be relevant to all of that.”

Dr Jim ChalmersRBARBA ReviewTreasury