Australian interest rates will be on hold for a while longer as the central bank confirms that it will ignore short term blips and troughs in inflation and other data caused by the floods and bad weather.

In the minutes of the March 1 board meeting, released yesterday the RBA said.

"Members confirmed that the Board's approach would be to look through temporary effects caused by extreme weather events and to continue to set monetary policy based on the medium-term outlook for growth and inflation.

"Overall, the economy appeared to be growing at close to its trend rate and the outlook for inflation over the year ahead was consistent with the target."

In both the above statements the bank is saying that it won't be stampeded by the expected rise in March and June quarter inflation (by around 0.5% to an annual rate of