Key Highlights

  • Hunter said she would actually love it if the country could forget about inflation, describing the endpoint the RBA is working towards.
  • Headline CPI is 4.3 per cent, the trimmed mean 3.6 per cent and CPI excluding volatile items 3.7 per cent.
  • Short-term inflation expectations are elevated, so that low and stable inflation has not yet arrived.

Reserve Bank Assistant Governor Sarah Hunter's candid remark on national television captures what the central bank is ultimately trying to achieve, and how far Australia currently is from that goal.

"I'd actually love it if the country could forget about it."

It is an unusual thing for a central banker to say about the very subject that defines the job. Yet Sarah Hunter, Assistant Governor (Economic) at the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), offered exactly that wish during an interview on 60 Minutes, broadcast on 25 October 2026 after being recorded on 21 October. The interviewer was Adam Hegarty.

The "it" was inflation. And while the remark was light in tone, it neatly summarises the purpose of monetary policy: a world in which price growth is so low and steady that households and businesses barely need to think about it.

When inflation is stable and close to target, it fades into the background. People can plan their spending, businesses can set prices and negotiate contracts, and savers can judge the value of their money without constantly adjusting for rising costs.

The RBA's target is to keep inflation within a 2–3 per cent range, using the 2.5 per cent midpoint as its reference point. Governor Michele Bullock reaffirmed that aim in her opening statement to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee on 28 October 2026, noting that the RBA has some flexibility on timing to balance its goal of full employment.

Ms Hunter's wish, in other words, is a plain-English version of the RBA's mandate. If inflation stayed inside the target band, the country could, in a sense, forget about it.

How far away that is today

On the same day the Governor addressed senators, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the September 2026 Consumer Price Index. It showed:

  • headline CPI up 4.3 per cent over the 12 months to September, up from 4.0 per cent in August
  • trimmed mean (underlying) inflation of 3.6 per cent, up from a revised 3.5 per cent
  • CPI excluding volatile items of 3.7 per cent
  • automotive fuel up 23.6 per cent and electricity up 12.8 per cent over the year

None of the broad measures is within the RBA's target range. Price rises at the bowser and on power bills are among the most noticeable a household experiences, which makes inflation especially hard to forget at the moment.

The Governor also told senators that short-term inflation expectations are elevated. That is effectively the opposite of the outcome Ms Hunter described: rather than forgetting about inflation, people are increasingly expecting more of it.

The wish is not purely hypothetical. According to Governor Bullock's Senate statement, inflation was within the target range for a period in 2024 and 2025, after peaking at 7.9 per cent at the end of 2022.

That interlude did not last. Inflation picked up in the second half of 2025 and has been above target since. "Recently, inflation has been around 3½ to 4 per cent in year-ended terms," the Governor said.

The RBA's August Statement on Monetary Policy projected a return to the midpoint only in late 2027, with risks skewed to the upside. Since then, the Governor said, "global energy prices are now much higher than had been assumed in the August forecasts", and "Inflation will therefore likely be higher than was our base case in August."

The cost of getting there

Ms Hunter used the same interview to explain the trade-offs involved in pursuing that goal. "the Board have put through four rate hikes this year," she said, referring to the Monetary Policy Board's increases that lifted the cash rate target to 4.60 per cent, effective 30 September 2026.

She was frank about the burden that places on some households. "It's not pain-free, it's not costless, but the cost of it is less using interest rates than it would be using other tools," she said. She also noted that past alternatives, such as 1970s price controls and an early-1980s wage freeze, had not worked well.

On mortgage holders, Ms Hunter said most borrowers entered the period with buffers such as offset savings, and that the RBA is not seeing systemic mortgage stress. "We're not seeing signs of lots of people having to sell their home because that's putting them into financial stress," she said.

Governor Bullock has acknowledged the strain too. At her media conference on 29 September 2026, she said: "Those who have mortgages, yes, this clearly impacts them and it hurts them."

The RBA's October 2026 Financial Stability Review found that "Most Australian households with mortgages remain well placed to manage more difficult conditions", with around 2 per cent of variable-rate owner-occupiers estimated to have a cash-flow shortfall.

Inflation as a people issue

Ms Hunter's wish connects to a theme the Governor emphasised in her graduation speech at the University of New England in Armidale on 23 October 2026. "the work of the RBA is about people," Governor Bullock said.

Recalling a visit to a national debt helpline, she said: "It provided a very human perspective on the economy that you don't get from looking at aggregate data."

At her September media conference, she put the case more starkly: "high inflation hurts all Australians, especially the most vulnerable." Seen through that lens, a country able to forget about inflation is one where fewer households are under that kind of strain.

What comes next

The Monetary Policy Board meets on 2–3 November 2026, with its decision and a new Statement on Monetary Policy due at 2.30 pm AEDT on 3 November. The decision has not been made, and Ms Hunter declined to signal what it would be.

The Board's September statement said its options include "increasing the cash rate target further if needed", and that it "will be attentive to the data and the evolving assessment of the outlook and risks".

The bottom line

Sarah Hunter's wish that Australians could "forget about" inflation is a reminder that the RBA's ultimate measure of success is an inflation rate low and stable enough to go unnoticed. With headline inflation at 4.3 per cent, underlying inflation at 3.6 per cent and short-term expectations elevated, that moment has not yet arrived.

As she said in the same interview: "We don't want to live with high inflation for a long time." When the country might be able to forget about it again is a question the RBA's November forecasts will begin to address.