Letters to the editor, The Daily Advertiser, June 24

Although I've never voted for Labor in the past, the ideal of being a party for the working man and the average Aussie is a good one. This used to be the aim of what I would call the "Old Labor Party".

Recently, it has shown by its actions that it is captive to the banking industry locally and internationally.

Allow me to illustrate this from what is going on now.

In the last 13 months the Reserve Bank Governor, Dr Philip Lowe, has seen fit to raise interest rates 12 times, and is hinting at more rises.

We have gone from nearly 0 per cent interest to 4.10 per cent. This is crushing the life out of the average Australian family who is paying off a mortgage.

The Reserve Bank uses inflation, which it has helped to cause, as an excuse to jack up interest rates.

To me, the real miscarriage of justice lies in Treasurer Jim Chalmers' failure to exert his right to overrule the Reserve Bank's interest rate increases and alleviate the financial pressure on Australian households.

Dr Chalmers had this power but, unbelievably, willingly agreed to give up the power to do so.

In April, he embraced the recommendation by a Reserve Bank review to remove the power of the treasurer to overrule monetary policy decisions and promised to legislate this as soon as possible.

Where does our Australian constitution allow this?

In my opinion, this is a betrayal of our people.

For him to purposefully remove the treasurer's, and any future treasurer's right, to dictate interest rate policy - giving the Reserve Bank dictatorial power over Australia's finances in this way with no accountability - is an abrogation of responsibility that should never be allowed. Does he really have this right?

Labor leaders of the past like Ted Theodore, Ben Chifley and John Curtin, would be rolling over in their graves if they knew what was happening.

They had the courage to prevent this type of injustice during the depression.

Paul Keating has spoken in favour of maintaining the treasurer's right to dictate such monetary policy too, but look what is happening now.

To me, the lack of compassion for the millions of Australians who are impacted by these actions seems to indicate that the Labor Party and Dr Chalmers have no interest in the welfare of all these citizens or they would not allow this situation to occur.

AGL's profit surge reinforces that it is high time we end fossil fuel subsidies and use the savings to create a climate disaster fund.

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