The RBA Has Warned of More Rate Rises. Here Is What It Actually Means for Your Mortgage

If you have a mortgage, the last week has probably not made you feel better about it.

On Tuesday 8 September, RBA deputy governor Andrew Hauser gave a rare television interview on the ABC’s 7.30 and said the quiet part out loud. Within twenty-four hours, forecasters across the market had rewritten their calls.

Here is what was actually said, what it would cost you in dollars, and the handful of things worth doing before the Board meets on 29 September.

What the RBA Actually Said

Hauser was blunt about the problem:

“We have one big problem and that’s inflation. Inflation is too high, and that’s why we raised interest rates three times at the beginning of this year. And the question now, frankly, for us, is have we done enough or is more needed.”

He pointed to two recent data releases: an inflation number that came in “a little stronger than we’d expected and the market expected”, and GDP growth that was “also a bit stronger”. Both, he said, “are going to be in the mix”.

Assistant governor Sarah Hunter was making similar remarks the same day, saying the Board “may well have to raise interest rates” if inflation ran stronger than forecast.

But the line worth sitting with is this one, from Hauser:

“People want inflation down. People are furious about inflation. I understand why. It’s unfair. It hits people on low incomes.”

That is the deputy governor of the Reserve Bank saying your frustration is legitimate. It does not make the repayments cheaper. But if you have been feeling like the anger is unreasonable, it is not, and the person setting the rates has said so on national television.

How Fast This Changed

The speed is the part most people have missed.

One month ago, when the Board held the cash rate at 4.35 per cent in August, all four major banks expected rates to stay on hold for the rest of 2026. As at 10 September, all four expect a rise. The argument has narrowed to when, not whether:

Goldman Sachs had put September at 45 per cent before the interview and was leaning towards November. Its chief economist moved to September the following day.

Some economists think this is an overreaction — AMP’s Shane Oliver has suggested two rises this year might be “overkill”, noting that only a few months ago the conversation was about cuts. That disagreement is worth remembering. Forecasts have been revised repeatedly this year, and the shift described above happened in a single day.

Why 4.60 per cent matters

If the cash rate reaches 4.60 per cent, that is the highest it has been since October 2011. We checked that against the RBA’s own published cash rate history rather than taking the headline’s word for it: the last time the target sat at or above 4.60 per cent was 5 October 2011, when it was 4.75 per cent.

For anyone who bought in the last decade, that would be unfamiliar territory.

What It Would Actually Cost You

This is the part that matters, so here it is in dollars. The table assumes a 30-year principal and interest loan currently on 6.00 per cent, and that your lender passes on the full move.

Illustrative only. Your rate and repayments will differ — run your own on the loan repayment calculator.

On a typical Newcastle mortgage of around $700,000, two more rises is roughly $228 a month, or about $2,731 a year, on top of what you are already paying.

And it is worth naming the cumulative position, because that is what people are actually feeling. If your rate has tracked the cash rate since it began rising in February, you have already absorbed 0.75 percentage points this year. Two more takes the total to 1.25 — roughly $572 a month more on a $700,000 loan than you were paying at the start of 2026. That is around $6,865 a year.

You Are Not Imagining The Squeeze

There is data behind the mood, and it is stark. The Westpac–Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment index fell to 84.4 in September, back into what Westpac described as deeply pessimistic territory. Its measure of consumer rate expectations jumped more than 7 per cent, with around 64 per cent of consumers now expecting mortgage rates to rise over the next twelve months — up from 59 per cent in August.

Two thirds of the country is bracing for the same thing you are. That is not a reason to panic; it is a reason to stop treating this as a personal failure to budget well enough. The rest of this article is about the part you can control.

Four Things Worth Doing Before 29 September

1. Find out what rate you are actually on

This is the highest-value ten minutes available to you, and most people cannot answer it. Lenders price new customers more sharply than existing ones, and after three rises in a year that gap has widened. If you have not had your loan reviewed in twelve months, the number you are paying and the number a new customer would be quoted may be meaningfully different.

A repricing request to your existing lender costs nothing and does not require you to move.

2. Stress-test your own budget, not the lender’s

Lenders already assess you with a 3 percentage point buffer — that is what regulated lenders must do. But that tells you whether you would survive, not whether you would be comfortable.

Put your loan into the repayment calculator at your current rate, then again half a percentage point higher. If the second number makes you uneasy, that is worth knowing now, while there are still options, rather than in December.

3. Get one extra repayment a year working for you

If rates are going up, the most effective counterweight is reducing the principal faster. Paying half your monthly repayment each fortnight quietly adds a thirteenth monthly repayment each year — on a $700,000 loan that clears the mortgage about five and a half years early and saves roughly $173,000 in interest.

It is the single best-value habit available to a borrower, and most people are given the version that does nothing. We explain the difference, and the mistake, in weekly, fortnightly or monthly repayments.

4. Look at your structure, not just your rate

An offset account, the right split between fixed and variable, or consolidating an expensive personal debt can move your monthly position more than a 0.25 percentage point rate change will. If you are weighing certainty against flexibility right now, our guide to fixed versus variable works through the trade-offs — including why fixing the week before an announcement rarely works the way people hope.

Should You Fix Before The Meeting?

I get asked this every time the news turns. The honest answer is that lenders price fixed rates off wholesale markets that already have this priced in. If the market thinks a rise is 60 per cent likely, that expectation is sitting in the fixed rates you are being quoted today.

Fixing is not a way to outrun a move everyone can see coming. It is a way to buy certainty, and certainty is worth paying for when your budget has no headroom. Fix because the certainty suits your circumstances — not because you are trying to beat a market that does this for a living.

What Happens Next

The Board meets on 28–29 September, with the decision published at 2:30pm on the 29th. Our September cash rate explainer walks through the August decision and the data the Board is weighing. The full quarterly inflation report lands on 28 October, which is why some forecasters expect the Board to wait for the November meeting instead.

Either way, the direction of the argument has changed. A month ago the debate was whether rates had peaked. Now it is whether one more rise is enough.

If You Are Worried, Have The Conversation Early

The clients who come through this best are not the ones with the biggest incomes. They are the ones who looked at it early, while they still had choices.

If your repayments are already uncomfortable, or you are doing the sums on the table above and not liking the answer, a conversation now is worth far more than one in February. There is no cost and no obligation, and in most cases it ends with at least one concrete thing you can do — a sharper rate, a better structure, or simply the confirmation that you are in better shape than you feared.

What I would not do is wait to find out.

Want to talk through what this means for your situation? Call David on 0417 676 191 or get in touch via our contact form.

This article is general information only and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Figures are illustrative and current as at the date of publication. Interest rates, lender policies and government scheme rules change — please seek advice specific to your circumstances before acting.

Sources

• Reserve Bank of Australia, Cash Rate Target — used to verify the last time the cash rate sat at or above 4.60 per cent.
• Reserve Bank of Australia, Media Releases — the 12 August 2026 decision and the meeting schedule.
• Remarks by RBA deputy governor Andrew Hauser, ABC 7.30, 8 September 2026, and by assistant governor Sarah Hunter the same day, as reported by the Australian Financial Review, Nine and Yahoo Finance.
• Westpac–Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment Index, September 2026, as reported 9 September 2026.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics, Consumer Price Index, Australia.