Until a week ago, Reserve Bank governor Phil Lowe would have thought he had a good chance of avoiding the controversial move that all central bank bosses dread: raising interest rates during an election campaign.

As the minutes of the Reserve Bank’s April board meeting clearly indicated, Australia’s central bank had thought it could wait for the release of “important additional evidence” on both inflation and wages – due in coming weeks – before deciding whether to raise interest rates for the first time since November 2010.