The Reserve Bank of Australia has published the minutes of its December 9 meeting. Officials at that meeting left their main policy rate, the cash rate, on hold at 3.60 percent.


Consistent with the statement accompanying the decision, the minutes note that officials were concerned about the most recent increase in headline inflation. This, they judged, suggests"some upside risk to the outlook for underlying inflation in the near term", with officials warning that headline inflation would likely exceed the forecasts they made last month in the near term.

Reflecting these considerations, officials concluded that a further rate cut was not warranted at this meeting but advised that"an increase in the cash rate might need to be considered at some point in the coming year"if current trends were to persist. Officials reiterated that their highest priority is to meet their inflation objectives and that they will do what it considers necessary to achieve that outcome.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) publishes minutes of its meetings with a two week lag. The text expands on the statement published two weeks earlier at the time of the announcement.

Although the RBA's Reserve Bank Board issues a detailed statement at the conclusion of its monthly meetings, investors also look to the minutes for a more detailed description of current economic outlook both domestically and abroad along with the latest RBB policy thinking.

It is only recently that the RBA has released meeting minutes. At the conclusion of their December 2007 meeting, the RBA announced several changes to its communications policy. Previously, a statement was released only if a policy change was made. Now a statement is released at the conclusion of every meeting. Another change concerned the timing of the policy announcement. Rather than waiting until the next day, the announcement occurs immediately after the conclusion of the meeting. In addition, minutes are now released two weeks after the meeting.