The Reserve Bank is facing pressure for its decision to keep interest rates higher for longer. With the treasurer disagreeing with the RBA's assessment that the economy is running too hot. Charities say real people are hurting and many are turning to their services to help put food on the table.
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00:00More people are relying on charities to get by as household budgets stretch far beyond
00:07their means.
00:08Yeah, everything's gone up, cost of living is crazy, I mean cost of gas, petrol is ridiculous.
00:16The Reserve Bank says that prices are staying higher than they'd like.
00:20We just think the economy's running a little bit hotter than we thought previously.
00:23I think it's going to take a little bit longer for inflation to get back to target.
00:27So if the economy's running a little bit hot, what can be done about it?
00:32We have, very broadly speaking, one lever, and it is a very blunt one, it's interest
00:36rates.
00:37Which the Central Bank now says will stay higher for longer.
00:41I think it's hard to sustain an argument that the economy is running too hot or that people
00:46have too much spare cash given all of the data and all of the feedback that we get,
00:51which shows that's not the case.
00:52From our perspective, we're setting policy for the aggregate and that's what's really,
00:56really challenging because we know about the group that are struggling there.
00:59Charities like this are helping people from all walks of life.
01:04People who can't afford rising rents, people sleeping on the streets, and increasingly
01:08people with higher mortgages.
01:10The question is, how much longer can all of these people hang on?
01:15I understand economists and the way that they speak, but the impacts that they have on people
01:21are tangible, they're real, and they hurt.
01:26And they're hurting too many people.
01:28To be told you're just an aggregate doesn't help put food on the table.
01:32And that's the real story here as politicians and bankers debate the data.