Hoodwinking for Australia

Australian Reserve Bank governor Ian Macfarlane has revealed that the Bank, in cohoots with the Australian Government, ‘conspired’ to spread disinformation during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis in order “to hoodwink foreign exchange markets”.

Mr Macfarlane said the “unusual” collaboration was intended to prevent interest rates rising, in response to a worrying plunge in the value of the Australian dollar.

In the panic of the Asian financial meltdown, foreign exchange markets spread “contagion” to most Asian currencies, dragging down the Australian dollar from 73.91 US cents on October 13 to 58.45 US cents eight months later. At one point the dollar fell by more than 5 US cents in a fortnight. It then had several more sustained falls before turning back up.

Mr Macfarlane said in most other countries whose currencies were falling, central banks had raised interest rates to try to shore up the currency. But the Reserve, which had cut cash interest rates from 7.5 per cent to 5 per cent over the previous 15 months, thought this would be ineffective and decided to try another strategy: “to make sure that a lot of people thought interest rates might go up”.

“It was very important to get the rhetoric right,” he said. “Canberra was very helpful. We sat down and talked to the Treasurer and the Prime Minister, and we all agreed on various things that should be said, and should not be said.

“We agreed — and it’s an agreement which by and large has held very effectively since then — that the Treasurer and the Prime Minister do not talk about the value of the Australian dollar.”

They could, however, always hint that rates could rise.

This seems a rather frank and unabashed admission of the kind of behaviour that would land the average CEO in hot water, were they to engage in similar behaviour on behalf of their companies.

And it all makes one wonder more generally about central banks in the Free West, whose role seems to be to actually mediate those free-market forces in which government’s otherwise have so much faith.