RBA governor defends rate rises
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Defending strategy: RBA governor Glenn Stevens (AAP: Norman Bailey)
Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) governor Glenn Stevens says it was necessary to raise interest rates earlier in the year to control inflation.
Mr Stevens is appearing before the House of Representatives Economics Committee in Melbourne.
Mr Stevens defended the RBA's decision to raise rates by 0.25 per cent in February and March, saying the rises paved the way for last week's cut in interest rates.
"I don't think we'd have been in that position without those two changes at the beginning of the year," he said.
"In fact, I think we could well have found ourselves, much later in the year, agonising over whether we should be raising rates even then, rather than being in the position that we were in to be steady and then starting to think about coming down a bit."
Mr Stevens says it is likely that interest rates will continue to fall if the economic slowdown continues.
