15 Quotes by Ian Macfarlane

For years I have made the point that progress in winding back economic slack is made not by high growth in any individual year, but by maintaining an expansion over a sustained period.

If people can't abide by the confidentiality of the cabinet room, then they should leave the cabinet.

For equity markets, the combination of low interest rates, strong economic growth and low inflation has proved very beneficial, with global share markets rising solidly in each of the past three years. This has been underpinned by strong growth in profits so that, notwithstanding the rise in share prices, P/E ratios have been declining on average.

Most of us at the Reserve Bank come from a background in economics and hence have a predisposition in favour of free markets and a sceptical attitude towards intervention in those markets unless there is a clearly defined economic rationale for it.

Banks and other providers of credit to households have been competing vigorously to expand or protect their market share. In the process, lending standards have been progressively eroded so that lenders are now engaging in practices that would have been regarded as out of the question five or ten years ago.

If people can’t abide by the confidentiality of the cabinet room, then they should leave the cabinet.