Re: Interest rates set to rise again!
The government should never have promised that interest rates would be kept low. Politicians should stay out of monetary policy decisions as much as possible, IMO.
As a semi-outsider, I see a lot of fear of interest rates in Australia compared to other countries, presumably from the time when they were in the high-teens. The fact is that if consumption is continuing to rise and put pressure on inflation, there isn't much else they can do except cut *their* spending or raise interest rates to encourage consumers to cut spending and put money into savings instead.
As kaos said, you have to prepare for this when taking out a mortgage. We started out by over-paying ours by a reasonable amount each month, but with all of the rate rises in the last year, we might end up just covering the minimum payment if we get another rise.
At the end of the day, and things are tight for us, better this than inflation rising out of control, which I believe to be a reasonable risk with tax cuts and election year govt spending. Also, as we get closer to full employment, we should start to see a inflationary pressure on wages.