Before Michele Bullock wrapped up her press conference, she was asked if she could, “in plain speak”, give some hope to the households who are struggling.
“I can’t tell them what will happen,” she responded.
“But we have made one cut and… I understand that will be helpful for some people.
“But I want to come back to the point I was emphasising earlier: we focus a lot on mortgage holders, and yes, they’re hurting because interest rates have risen so much from the emergency lows during the pandemic.
“But the fact that prices have gone up by 18 per cent over the last couple of years is hurting them, it’s hurting all of the renters, it’s hurting all the low-income people, it’s hurting everyone.
“It’s really essential we get that under control. And that will mean that we can return to more normal levels of interest rates.
“I don’t know what they are, but what I can say is they won’t be the levels of interest rates they were during the pandemic – they were emergency low interest rates.
“They will be above that. How much below where they are now, I couldn’t tell you. It will all depend on the success in getting inflation down.”
