What is the federal government afraid of? Does it want 'full employment' or not?

A number of commentators have pointed out that last week's RBA review wasn't as revolutionary as it was presented by the media. The reviewers want to remove the government's ability to overrule an RBA decision, and this is the reason they provided: "To further enhance the RBA's monetary policy independence the Review recommends the repeal of s11 - of the RBA Act, which sets out a procedure for the Government to override decisions of the Reserve Bank Board. In 1944, when World War II was still raging, Labor treasurer Ben Chifley sought advice from Herbert "Nugget" Coombs, the director-general of the Department of Post-War Reconstruction, on what he thought the relationship between the federal government and Australia's central bank ought to look like after the war. In his autobiography, Coombs says that's where the central bank's famous three-pronged charter came from: "From the Keynesian stronghold of the Ministry of Post-War Reconstruction, I and my colleagues were urging that the bank legislation should record the commitment of the objective of full employment," he wrote. We'll soon be severing another element of government control of the RBA, and the memory of its being a "people's bank" will disappear from the charter.