Guy Debelle: Low inflation

Address by Mr Guy Debelle, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, at The Economic Society of Australia (QLD) Business Lunch, Brisbane, 22 August 2018.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

The inflation rate is currently just over 2 per cent (Graph 1). This is consistent with the inflation target for the Reserve Bank agreed between the Governor and the Treasurer. However, that follows a period where inflation has been a little below target for a number of quarters. While inflation has averaged 2½ per cent since the inflation target was introduced, over the past three years it has averaged 1.8 per cent (Table 1).