On September 22, 2026, a member of the Monetary Policy Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) gave a speech – A Wage-price Spiral: What are the Chances? – at Melbourne University. The tenor of his presentation was that despite the constant recent claims about wages pressures emanating from a labour market that is too tight and driving the current inflationary episode, there was no evidence to support the claims. That is a position that I have been arguing for over the last several years in countering the mainstream narratives. But, interestingly, and shockingly, on the same day, the RBA governor gave a speech to the right-leaning Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) – Fireside Chat at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) – where she claimed that unemployment had to rise towards 5 per cent (from its current level of 4.5 per cent) because the labour market was too tight and driving business costs and inflation. The extraordinary juxtaposition of these views is one thing. But the governor’s continual claims that the current inflationary pressures are sourced from the labour market defies the evidence and clearly is intended to give her cover for further interest rate rises.