IMO, the reason that Labor is having an inquiry into the RBA is because of this situation (loss due to bonds depreciation) & not the Governor's wild forecasts on interest rates.
The RBA still holds over $600 Billion in Bonds, the result of QE.
IMO , the RBA should have fed these bonds back into the market before it started to raise interest rates because the interest rate has reduced the bonds values.(when Bonds interest rates go up, the value of an already issued bond goes down. This is not rocket science !
IMO , its logical to sell the QE Bonds first because the purpose of QE was to stimulate the economy & avoid deflation by not only accommodating the Government's borrowing to avoid tax increases but also make Banks more liquid so that they could loan like drunken sailors on next to nothing interest rates.
Reducing the money supply by putting the Bonds back in the market would have had a similar effect in the short term as raising interest rates and at the same time protect the RBA from Loss and as an extra bonus, pass on the RBA profits to Treasury.
IMO the Board & Governor will have to answer to Government why it didn't do that.
