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The experts predicted it and homeowners feared it. The Reserve Bank of Australia announced ‘double trouble’ today, with the second rate rise in as many months. And with the war in the Middle East continuing economists are warning there could be more bad news to come. Rates have increased by a quarter of a percentage point.

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00:02More pain for Australian borrowers.
00:05Ultimately, with inflation that is already too high,
00:08the board decided raising the cash rate was the right call.
00:12Inflation above target and a war in the Middle East,
00:14helping to spark a fresh rate rise.
00:16We've got an inflation challenge in our economy already
00:19and developments in the Middle East are making that worse.
00:23For the second months in a row,
00:25the RBA has lifted the cash rate by a quarter of a percentage point
00:28in a split vote 5-4, taking it up to 4.1%,
00:32back to where it was a year ago.
00:34If lenders pass on the rate hike in full,
00:37homeowners with a $750,000 mortgage
00:39will see their minimum repayment rise by about $113 a month,
00:44which means they're now paying $226 more on their home loan
00:48since the RBA began lifting rates last month.
00:51For a million-dollar mortgage, repayments will increase by $151,
00:56meaning they'll be paying more than $300 extra.
01:01In breaking news, the Reserve Bank has increased the cash rate...
01:05It's certainly not the news Anna Sree wanted to hear.
01:08I don't have a lot of, like, non-regular expenses that are,
01:13I would say, like, discretionary spending, really.
01:15It's probably just food that I could cut.
01:18The RBA governor was tight-lipped on what might happen next.
01:21If we don't see the numbers indicating that we're going to see a slowing
01:25in underlying inflation, let's assume that it stays at 3.5%,
01:29then, unfortunately, we're going to see another rate rise from here.
01:33Would you be prepared to put Australia into recession
01:35if that's what it takes to bring inflation much lower?
01:38We don't want to have a recession.
01:41But if it's hard to get inflation down,
01:44then, you know, we're going to have to deal with that.
01:47Australia now has higher interest rates than many other economies
01:50like the US, UK and Canada.
01:52But it doesn't seem to be working
01:54because inflation here is also higher than in those countries.
01:57So that suggests even more rate hikes might be needed.
02:01Balancing that pain against the risk of recession, which no one wants.
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