Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers said he’s still interviewing candidates for the Reserve Bank’s deputy governor role after Michele Bullock started on the top job this week, adding that he’ll make a decision “before long.”
(Bloomberg) — Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers said he’s still interviewing candidates for the Reserve Bank’s deputy governor role after Michele Bullock started on the top job this week, adding that he’ll make a decision “before long.”
“It’s a high quality field and we’ll end up with a very good deputy governor of the Reserve Bank, but we haven’t made a decision yet,” Chalmers told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio Friday. “I think I’ve interviewed a small number, three of those, so far.”
Bullock was formerly the central bank’s no. 2 policymaker, until Philip Lowe’s tenure came to an end this month.
Currently, only the RBA governor and deputy publicly discuss monetary policy, though more news briefings and speakers will be enabled next year as the central bank implements its first major revamp since the 1990s.
Bullock took office on Monday and will chair her first monetary policy board meeting on Oct. 3 where economists generally expect interest rates to remain at 4.1% for a fourth straight month.
Local media have labeled some of the imminent changes in the RBA, including the creation of a new monetary policy board and a separate governance board, as radical. Chalmers pushed back against that on Friday, saying the changes will be legislated toward end-2023.
“The current board has a majority of external people, the future board will have a majority of external people – that doesn’t strike me as a particularly radical change,” Chalmers told reporters in Canberra. “You’ll see before long the draft legislation.”
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