Victorian premier Dan Andrews has slammed the Reserve Bank after it delivered its 11th rate rise in the past 12-months.
The Premier claimed the RBA had failed to combat rising inflation, and was instead “smashing families” across in the state.
“I don’t know that pulling this lever is necessarily delivering the outcome that the bank wants…to get inflation under control,” he said.
“I’m certain (the RBA) are creating lots of other problems. Many, many families are under enormous pressure at the moment.”
RBA governor Philip Lowe announced on Tuesday that interest rates would be increased following a one-off pause last month.
The RBA will increase official interest rates from 3.6 per cent to 3.85 per cent, the highest they have been since May 2012.
Mr Andrews said the state government had borrowed money with the assurance of the RBA that interest rates would not go up.
“This is causing an enormous amount of pain,” Mr Andrews told the media outside state parliament on Wednesday.
“The problem with these tools is you don’t know that you’ve gone too far until you’ve gone too far.”
The condemnation comes as Mr Andrews fronts criticism of the upcoming state budget.
Mr Andrews labelled the budget – which is due to be delivered on May 23 – as “very, very challenging”.