Blogotariat

The Reserve Bank has left the cash rate unchanged at 4.35%, in a decision announced today.

The cash rate has now been held at 4.35% for the past four months.

In a statement released today, the RBA board says that inflation has moderated but is still high. It says the “outlook is highly uncertain”.

• Interest Rate Movements Since 1990

Watch RBA Governor Michele Bullock’s press conference (39m):

The commercial future of AI will soon be bigger than the actions of any firm, individual, research team, or open-source community. In the near term, a massive tailwind of potential use cases and nearly completed projects will determine the rate of progress in creating value for users and suppliers. Still, the source of the next frontier commercial breakthrough and the distribution of profits look undetermined and, for reasons to be explained, underdetermined.

Large language models (LLMs) have overrun commercial markets, more like a tsunami than a normal technical wave of interest. The topic is everywhere –news stories, blogs, podcasts, startup investments, analyst reports, hackathons, and government announcements. A virtual frenzy surrounds it.

Scott Morrison, the former Prime Minister (2018-22), has delivered his valedictory speech to the House of Representatives.

Morrison will resign as the Liberal member for Cook later this week.

First elected to parliament in 2007, Morrison was re-elected five more times. He served nearly six years in opposition before becoming a Cabinet minister upon election of the Abbott coalition government in 2013. Becoming prime minister on August 24, 2018, Morrison won the 2019 election, but was defeated at the election of May 21, 2022.

The Defence Minister, Richard Marles, has announced an upgrade and expansion of the Australian Navy to give it an “enhanced lethality surface combatant fleet”.

Flanked by the Pat Conroy, the Minister for Defence Industry, Marles announced an additional $11 billion over the next decade. The money will be used to expand the Navy’s fleet of warships to 26 vessels, an increase of 15 craft.

Commitments to the construction of naval vessels in South Australia and Western Australia were reiterated, with ship workers being promised work for deacdes.