The RBA is feeling the pressure. (Michael Steele, Getty Images)

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has been pleading with the federal government to throw out its plan to return to budget surplus and get the economy moving for months.

Just how desperate the RBA has become however is revealed in a new chart showing how frequently governor Philip Lowe has broached the topic in recent months

With the government remaining firm in its resistance however, the pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is at the end of its tether with the Australian government.

Since the middle of the year, the central bank has been handing out interest rate cuts like candy, in a bid to get the slow economy moving.

Like an Oprah giveaway, June got a cut, July got a cut, and October got one too. Hell, there’s even another one that has February’s name written all over it if the country’s economic boffins are to be believed, which will likely take the official cash rate to 0.5%.

READ MORE: The big banks are refusing to pass on the RBA’s interest rate cut in full – and the government isn’t happy about it

The lower interest rate is having little impact. The unemployment rate has come back slightly to around 5.2% — but a long way from the 4.5% level it needs to be. The lack of subsequent growth is worrying, not least of which because the RBA knows it could potentially flood the property market with cheap credit befitting of a housing bubble.

But it’s got few other choices than to go down an unconventional and unprecedented path of quantitative easing (QE) and negative interest rates — both of which it would rather avoid.

That leaves it with just one good option – ask the government to do its bit, loosen the purse strings and spend enough to allow the RBA to ease off the monetary policy pedal. And that is exactly what RBA governor Philip Lowe been doing, spelled out perfectly in this one chart.

Nice little quantification (of something we already know) from HSBC's Paul Bloxham – counting references to fiscal policy made by the #RBA. First it was asking for policy assistance, then in 2015-18 it was intermittently pleading – now in 2019 it is on its knees begging. #ausbiz pic.twitter.com/qDYmSmD5Z1 — Alex Joiner (@IFM_Economist) October 28, 2019

Put together by HSBC chief economist for Australia and New Zealand Paul Bloxham, the chart marks the frequency with which ‘fiscal stimulus’ – a.k.a. government spending – has pervaded the governor’s public speeches. The end of the chart shows that “now in 2019 [the RBA] is on its knees begging”, according to IFM economist Alex Joiner.

Note that Lowe has only been in the top job since September 2016. You can see Lowe more or less mirrored his predecessor Glen Stevens’ final two years of references when he took over. However, since 2019, things have taken a real turn, as Lowe realises there’s only so far you can cut interest rates before things get weird.

Not that he’s made any secret of that. In fact, Lowe has distinguished himself as breaking the mould of RBA governors, being far more outspoken than any of those that have gone before him. He’s had to be, with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg resisting calls to blow his planned budget surplus to do so.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose.

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