flow of data and our assessment of the outlook, the board judged that it was appropriate to increase interest rates again today. in broad terms, the board is seeking to bring inflation down within a reasonable timeframe while also preserving as many of the gains in the labour market as possible. 1 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches it took a long time for australia to get back to conventional estimates of full employment. but, as a by - product of the pandemic and the policy responses, we got there. the unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in nearly 50 years. underemployment is also lower than it has been for a long time, and a higher share of australians have jobs than ever before. our society is better off as a result and it is in our collective interest to maintain as many of these gains as we can. i acknowledge that we are travelling along a narrow path here. history teaches us that it is difficult to bring inflation down while keeping the economy on an even keel. so, we need to be realistic. at present, though, the data provide some confidence that we are still on this narrow path and it is possible that we can stay on it. if we are to stay on that path, australians need to have confidence that inflation will come down and return to target. if people think inflation is going to remain high then, understandably, they will adjust their behaviour. firms will be more willing to put up their prices and workers will seek larger pay rises. if this adjustment in expectations were to happen, high inflation would become entrenched and the end result would be even higher interest rates and a poorer outlook for jobs. it is for these reasons that the board is resolute in its commitment to returning inflation to target within a reasonable timeframe. we don't need to get inflation back to target straight away, but nor can we take too long. we are taking a bit more time than some other countries, on the basis that doing so can preserve some of the gains in the labour market. but there is a limit here. if we take too long to get inflation back to target, expectations will adjust and life will become more difficult. today's further adjustment in interest rates will help with the return of inflation to target in a reasonable period. this is the best way of sustaining as many of the gains in employment as is possible. looking forward, some further tightening of monetary policy may be required to ensure that inflation returns to

us that the nature of money changes with the available technology. to help us explore the various possibilities, we have recently issued a small amount of digital currency as part of a research project with the digital finance cooperative research centre. this central bank digital currency is being used by the industry to explore possible use cases, and we are very interested to see the results. the rba is also the banker to the australian government. this means that we process all social security payments, tax payments and medicare refunds. that is a big and important job in itself. we also operate the core of australia's payments system – when you send money from your bank to another it goes through the reserve bank. we operate a central part of australia's 24 / 7 real - time payments system. i hope that you all have a payid, so that you can take best advantage of this system. if you don't have one, i encourage you to go get one. payids are not only convenient to use, but they can also reduce the incidence of some types of payment scams. the rba is also the regulator of critical parts of the payments system and financial infrastructure. we have a broad responsibility for financial stability and are the lender of last resort in a liquidity crisis. and we are a large financial institution in our own right, with a balance sheet of $ 620 billion. these are all important functions that we perform for the nation. they are carried out by highly dedicated staff who are strongly motivated to serve the public interest. finally, i would like to thank you again for joining us this evening and for your interest in the rba. we look forward to learning more from you about how things are going here in the great state of western australia. i am happy to answer some of your questions. thank you. 4 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches