Mortgage holders can expect to receive more information about why the Reserve Bank of Australia has chosen to keep interest rates unchanged

The Reserve Bank will on Tuesday hand over the minutes of its last meeting in September, at which the official interest rate was maintained at 3.6 per cent.

Governor Michelle Bullock did not say whether the Reserve Bank would consider further interest rate cuts in 2025, after three cuts earlier in the year.

While economists expected the possibility of further easing in the cash rate towards the end of the year, stubborn inflation has discouraged further mortgage easing.

The latest monthly inflation data shows inflation at 2.8 per cent, at the top of the Reserve Bank’s target range of 2 to 3 per cent.

Ms. Bullock said at a Senate hearing on Friday that inflation estimates remain “flat,” especially in areas such as the services sector.

“This is offset by a slight decline in goods inflation, but services inflation remains high by about three percent,” she said.

However, she said Australia’s unemployment rate was at a good rate.

These statements came before the release of new labor force figures for September, which will be released on Thursday.

The national unemployment rate held steady at 4.2 per cent for August, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data, although employment fell by 5,000 people during the month.

Economists expected the unemployment rate to remain steady at 4.2 percent in September.

The Commonwealth Bank expects 30,000 jobs will be added to the economy during the month, with the participation rate increasing to 66.9 per cent.

Taylor Nugent, chief markets economist at NAB, said the unemployment data was a tie between 4.2 or 4.3 per cent for September, but that figure was unlikely to influence the Reserve Bank on interest rates.

“It is unlikely that the data will be weak enough to trigger the November meeting (to cut interest rates), given our expectations of a material inflation surprise,” he said.

The Reserve Bank of Australia governor is also expected to provide further insights into the state of the economy during his speech to the Nomura Research Forum on Thursday in Washington.

Meanwhile, months of calm on Wall Street were shattered on Friday, with US stocks falling after President Donald Trump threatened to raise tariffs on China.

The S&P 500 fell 2.7 percent on its worst day since April, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 878 points, or 1.9 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 3.6 percent.

Australian stock futures fell 84 points, or 0.93 percent, to 15,618 points.

The S&P/ASX200 index fell 11.5 points on Friday, down 0.13 per cent to 8958.3 as the broader All Ordinaries index lost 12.3 points or 0.13 per cent to 9264.3.