One curiosity about the October meeting was the absence of three key external directors: Roger Corbett AO, Graham Kraehe AO and Warwick McKibbin, at least one of whom, McKibbin, is a noted hawk. Anyone who has serious experience with professional boards would appreciate that this may have weighed on the Bank's reluctance to undertake a pre-emptive hike in October: ie, better to wait until the full Board is present with the CPI data in hand to make a final resolution on what would be the commencement of a semi-controversial tightening campaign, and the first of its kind amongst the advanced economies.
Postscript: I just noticed that David Uren at The Australian had noticed the same thing, suggesting that the RBA executive was rolled by the Board.
