13/05/2026
Every time rates go up, the same people cop the blame. The RBA. Michele Bullock. The board.
Andrew Mirams reckons we’ve been looking in the wrong direction entirely.
The RBA is an independent body responding to
inflation data, it doesn’t cause inflation, it reacts to it. So the question Andrew asks in his latest piece is the one most commentary skips: who’s actually driving the inflation the RBA keeps hiking to contain?
His answer points squarely at decisions being made well beyond the central bank. Four of them, in particular,
👉Why we’re paying war-zone prices for fuel despite sitting on more than 40 years of our own oil reserves and the policy choices keeping us reliant on Middle East imports
👉A public sector that grew 3.26% last financial year, more than double the rate of the population (1.6%), with 107,000 more public employees on the way
👉Record immigration numbers, 415,760 long-term
arrivals in the year to September 2025, landing in a
country with a housing shortage already pushing CPI up 6.5%
👉 State-level spending decisions, particularly in Victoria, where interest payments are now the fastest- growing line item in the budget
It’s a strong opinion. Andrew makes no apologies for it. But every figure in the piece is drawn from publicly reported data and ABS records, so whether you agree with his conclusion or not, the data is worth five minutes of your time.
Especially if you’re one of the many Australians watching the next RBA decision with a knot in your stomach.
https://intuitivefinance.com.au/why-our-governments-are-to-blame-for-your-rising-interest-rates/
