What the RBA minutes said in October 2026

In August, the Reserve Bank Board weighed a rise against leaving the cash rate "unchanged for the time being". Its minutes gave the case for holding three paragraphs, and it held at 4.35%. The minutes of the 29 September meeting, published at 11:30 this morning, give holding one. Members "briefly considered" it, then voted unanimously for a 0.25 percentage point rise to 4.60%.

The first of three reasons was that "several of the upside risks identified in August had since materialised or were building". Oil sat well above what the August forecasts assumed, AI demand was pushing up costs, and spare capacity at home looked thinner than thought. The second was timing: "waiting for further confirmation of the outlook for inflation could be costly".

The third turns on the neutral rate, the level at which the cash rate neither speeds the economy up nor slows it down. If financial markets are right that this rate has risen globally, then 4.35% "was less restrictive" than two years earlier.

The minutes also name the cost. Getting inflation back to target "would require accepting slower growth in demand and employment than would otherwise be the case". One figure is about home loans across the country: scheduled repayments had reached "around 10 per cent of household disposable income", near their 2024 peak. The Board kept open "increasing the cash rate target further if required".

On the ABC's business blog, Michael Janda called the minutes "hawkish" and said the market's chance of a November rise was "virtually unchanged at 33%". The ASX's own tracker read 27 per cent at Monday's close, down from 42 per cent on decision day.

Economists are split two and two. ANZ and Westpac expect another rise on 3 November, to 4.85%. CBA and NAB expect a hold but don't rule a rise out, Aussie reported last week. Quoted on the same ABC blog after the minutes, NAB chief economist Sally Auld kept the hold call but said risks remain "biased to a modest tightening".

On our board, the September rise has mostly arrived. Twenty-three of our 31 lenders have lifted their variable rates by 0.25 points since the decision. We recorded the first on 3 October (AMP Bank and BOQ) and the latest this morning (Beyond Bank and Heritage). The big four arrived on 9 and 10 October.

The other eight haven't moved in our readings, though our Suncorp readings end on 5 October. Finder's tracker has Macquarie, Bank Australia, Qudos Bank and Bank of Sydney rising on Thursday, 15 October, and P&N Bank from today. For now, Macquarie's Basic Home Loan has the lowest comparison rate on our board: 6.06% (6.04% advertised). Next is MyState Bank at 6.07%. Finder lists its rise from 8 October, but its open banking rates haven't changed.

A lender that waits keeps charging the old rate while much of its funding cost follows the cash rate up. In return it climbs tables like ours while everyone else moves. We can't see how each lender weighs that.

The meeting ended the day before the August inflation figures came out, so the minutes can't say how the Board reads them. Both camps are waiting on the September quarter figures on 28 October. The next decision, with new forecasts, is on 3 November.