The RBA says several new early indicators it has developed in-house are helping it to build a "fuller view" of wage movements ahead of the release of official figures.
The highly-orthodox IMF has told the RBA's annual research conference that it is "hard to find" recent wage-price spirals across advanced economies and that pay acceleration "should not be seen as a sign" that the corkscrew feared by the central bank "is taking hold", in a session in which new board member and former FWC president Iain Ross led discussion.
New DEWR data has undercut RBA warnings about the risks of a wage-price spiral, indicating that private sector bargained wage growth remains anchored below 4% a year.
The chair of the ACTU's price gouging inquiry, former ACCC chair Alan Fels, has told a public hearing this is a "missing piece" in Australia's inflation story and there is a lot of resistance to the message that it is being driven by "prices themselves", while the Australia Institute says corporate profits must fall.
Productivity has far exceeded wage growth in mining and agriculture, but they have largely expanded together across the rest of the economy, and "productivity remains the key to continued wage growth and long-term prosperity", according to a new Productivity Commission report.
In figures that don't align with the RBA's warnings about a wage-price spiral, new ABS figures show private sector rates of pay excluding bonuses are rising at an unchanged 3.8% a year.
RBA Governor Philip Lowe, who earned the ire of unions and some in the Albanese Government with his repeated warnings about the risks of a wage-price spiral, is set to be replaced at the end of his term by his deputy, Michele Bullock, who will be the first woman to lead the central bank.
New DEWR data shows that bargained private sector wages grew at 3.9% a year in the March quarter - the fastest rate of increase in more than a decade, but still a long way behind inflation.
Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke has played down the significance of FWC president Adam Hatcher questioning whether a perceived big increase in the minimum wage could contribute to further increases in interest rates.
A senior Treasury Department official says the Federal Budget's forecast that inflation will drop back to 2% to 3% by mid-2025 assumes the FWC will make a minimum wage ruling that "broadly proxies" last year's increases.
