STEPHEN JOHNSON: Reserve Bank lifts rates and releases survey showing it’s more popular than Anthony Albanese

The Reserve Bank may be a figure of hate but it’s apparently much more trusted than Anthony Albanese even with forecasts of yet another rate rise next year that could tip Australia into a recession.

With interest rates hiked this week for the fifth time since February, the RBA’s deputy governor Andrew Hauser provocatively cited a survey showing it had more public support than the Federal Government.

Before an audience at Canberra’s Australian National University, he pointed to a graphic showing the Reserve Bank had close to 60 per cent “higher trust” support while the Commonwealth was backed by just half the population.

Political parties in general had a combined trust rating of 40 per cent.

The RBA’s own survey, by JWS Research, covered the period of three rate cuts in 2025 and four rate hikes from February to September - suggesting the public prefers the independent technocrats to the elected officials who make the taxing and spending decisions.

When it comes to Australia’s stubbornly high inflation, it appears the Government is getting more of the blame, with the RBA seen as the economic highway patrol going after a speeding car - more than three-quarters of the public supports the police, after all.

But like Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who talks down the Government’s role in reducing inflation, Mr Hauser is also a master of spin.

On Thursday night, he denied that a previous speech from last month - where he used the phrase “the inflation outlook looks materially worse” - was designed to increase financial market expectations of this week’s Melbourne Cup day hike that took the cash rate to an 18-year high of 4.85 per cent.

“I’m pretty sure my score at being a boring central banker is up there with the very best,” Mr Hauser said.

But unlike the Federal Government, which doesn’t officially reveal splits among its Cabinet ministers, the RBA revealed on Tuesday afternoon a six to three vote for a hike, that could potentially see RBA Governor Michele Bullock forced to publicly defend a monetary policy board decision she disagreed with.

“When it comes to debates on the board, I don’t really recognise this picture of board members being driven into a corner,” he said.

Instead, he described them as “fearless to challenge each other and to challenge other views” to avoid groupthink because “monetary policy is hard”.

“What I see on our board - and frankly, it’s an enormous strength; if I didn’t believe this, I wouldn’t say it to you,” he said.

“I make no apology for the fact the board has very, very lively debates about those issues.

“We did have hard choices. We faced into them.”

But if inflation fails to moderate, another hike in 2027 would see the RBA cash rate climb above 5 per cent for the first time since December 2008 during the global financial crisis.

Former Reserve Bank economist Zac Gross, now a senior lecturer at Monash University, said a rate rise next year was looking likely with rate cuts a distant prospect unless there was an unforeseen recession.

“The exemption to that is if something seriously breaks in the economy and we see some sort of recession coming from a part of the economy that was previously completely unforeseen, or it was travelling well,” he told The Nightly.

“Something can always break and when things tend to break, they break quickly and interest rates tend to fall quite quickly as a result.”

As for trust, Dr Gross argued the public probably had more faith in un-elected bureaucrats, noting survey data lacked depth.

“It might just be that all politicians are distrusted and anyone with the word ‘independent’ commonly applied to their name gets a trust bump,” he said.

The Reserve Bank had an unusual defender on Friday in Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar who argued it could be trusted.

“In fact, here what I’m saying is you know we shouldn’t be pointing the finger at the Reserve Bank because you know they are responding according to their act, according to their charter,” he told veteran journalist Michelle Grattan.

Australia’s biggest employer group has little trust in the Federal Government.

“Is Government spending too high? Is it contributing to inflation? The answer to both those questions is yes. Yes, it is, it is too high and it is contributing to inflation,” Mr McKellar said.