Rates in the gun in the biggest shake-up at Reserve Bank in 64 years
Business leaders David Thodey and Jennifer Westacott will go on to the Reserve Bank’s new governance board while a former regional banker, Marnie Baker, will be one of two new appointments to the institution’s committee charged with setting interest rates.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers will this morning announce the most sweeping changes to the RBA’s operation since its inception in 1960, with a separate board to oversee its overall governance and another board to guide monetary policy.
Former Business Council chief executive Jennifer Westacott will be one of a series of new appointments to the Reserve Bank’s governance board.Credit: Michael Quelch
The interest rate committee will comprise existing RBA board members Ian Harper, Alison Watkins, Iain Ross, Carolyn Hewson plus governor Michele Bullock, her deputy, Andrew Hauser and Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy.
They will be joined by Baker, who has 35 years’ experience in the financial sector, including as chief executive officer of the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank and deputy chair of the Australian Banking Association.
Also on this committee will be economist Renee Fry-McKibbin, who was on the RBA review that recommended the creation of the separate monetary policy and governance boards. Fry-McKibbin is a professor at the Australian National University and is one of the nation’s most respected monetary policy experts.
Two members of the current board, Elana Rubin (who was appointed by Chalmers) and Carol Schwartz (appointed by then treasurer Scott Morrison) have asked to move to the governance board. Schwartz will become the governance board’s deputy chair.
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They will join Thodey, who across a long business career has run Telstra and IBM Australia, and Westacott, who was the head of the Business Council of Australia.
Also on the governance board will be lawyer Danny Gilbert, co-founder of Gilbert+Tobin, and Swati Dave who was managing director of Export Finance Australia between 2017 and 2022. Dave, who has worked with the NAB, Deutsche Bank and AMP Henderson Global Investors, is chair of the advisory board to the Centre for Australia-India Relations.
