Philip Lowe: Plain-speaking voice of economic reasons

Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has proved a reassuring voice on the country’s prospects.

Philip Lowe has avoided the fury of tabloid headline writers. Picture: Hollie Adams

Reserve Bank governors, as a rule, don’t want to be front-page news. Often, however, they have little choice. After all, their interest rate decisions affect millions of mortgage holders.

Since being appointed to the top job in August 2016, the softly spoken Philip Lowe has apparently learned to embrace, if not exactly love, the public profile.

Through a period of increasing economic uncertainty, here and abroad, Dr Lowe has proved a reassuring voice on the country’s prospects.

His glass-half-full approach has been the subject of some derision by financial sector economists, but the governor offers no apologies.

He has taken seriously the bank’s mandate to contribute to “the economic prosperity and welfare of the Australian people”, and cheerleading the economy is part of that duty, and one reason why he is nominated for The Australian’s Australian of the Year.

In a country obsessed with bricks and mortar, the RBA’s rate decisions can make the head of the central bank a target for vitriol. Most notably when in 2008 Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph newspaper, on its front page, dubbed former governor Glenn Stevens “the most useless man in Australia”.

Dr Lowe has, so far, avoided the fury of tabloid headline writers. It has helped that he has yet to lift rates. It has also helped that unlike his more taciturn predecessor, Dr Lowe has worked to make the bank’s decision-making processes more transparent. A weekly speech from the governor or one of his senior colleagues is the rule rather than the exception.

Gone are the obscure proclamations of past governors, which only a credentialed economic cabal could interpret. Instead, Dr Lowe’s speeches are clearly presented and in plain English, if still necessarily technical.

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The governor’s challenge is to convince an increasingly sceptical public not why rates need to rise but why they should fall still further. This at a time when Dr Lowe and his board have pushed the RBA cash rate to an unprecedented low of 0.75 per cent, and as property prices restart vertiginous climbs in Australia’s major cities.

Dr Lowe was born in 1961 in Wagga Wagga, a birthplace he mentions frequently and proudly in speeches and public forums.

A student of prodigious talent, he won a scholarship with the RBA in 1980 to work at the bank and complete his undergraduate studies part-time, which he did with honours, from the University of NSW in 1985, winning the medal for economics along the way.

He then followed a well-trodden path to complete his PhD at prestigious American university MIT.

Dr Lowe also spent time at the Bank of International Settlements.

We encourage our readers to put in a nomination for The Australian’s Australian of the Year, which was first won in 1971 by economist HC “Nugget” Coombs.

We encourage our readers to put in a nomination for The Australian’s Australian of the Year, which was first won in 1971 by economist HC “Nugget” Coombs. Prominent Australians can be nominated by filling out the coupon above, or sending an email to [e-mail] or going to our website, theaustralian.com.au. Nominations close on Thursday, January 23.