The sales job of financial regulators on the detail and necessity of this month's innovations on macroprudential policy measures passed some sort of zenith last night, with RBA governor Philip Lowe using a Melbourne dinner to spruik the latest policy direction.The concern of the Reserve Bank of Australia and other regulators, Lowe said, "has not been that … developments have posed a risk to the stability of our financial system. Our banks are resilient and they are soundly capitalised. "Instead, the concern has been that the longer the recent trends continued, the greater the risk to the future health of the Australian economy. Stretched balance sheets make for more volatility when things turn down."Lowe's speech provided a platform to provide a more thorough appraisal than the language introduced to the RBA's monthly statement on monetary policy following its board meeting yesterday Morning. The RBA left the cash rate target stable at 1.50 per cent, while positioning inflation as "quite low". However, the RBA board said that "headline inflation is expected to pick up over the course of 2017 to be above two per cent."The "developments" engaging the RBA and other financial regulators Lowe summarised as "the level of household debt and the housing market."Lowe surveyed familiar material."The level of household debt in Australia is high and it is rising. Over the past year the value of housing-related debt outstanding increased by 6.5 per cent. This compares with growth of around three per cent in aggregate household income," he said."The result has been a further rise in the ratio of household debt to income, from an already high level."Reworking past assessments of the RBA, Lowe said "in aggregate, households are coping reasonably well with the higher debt levels. Arrears rates remain low and many households have built up sizeable buffers in mortgage offset accounts."Lowe listed a few stings."At the same time," he said, "slow growth in wages is making it harder for some households to pay down their debt. For many people, the high debt levels and low wage growth are a sobering combination.In the housing market, conditions continue to vary considerably across the country. The Melbourne and Sydney markets are very strong and prices are increasing briskly. In contrast, conditions are more subdued in most other cities and, in some areas, most notably Perth, prices have declined. "Nationally, growth in rents is the lowest for some decades."Lowe also rattled through RBA favourites, such as the languid response of the home building sector to accelerated population growth in Australia since the mid 2000s and underinvestment in transport."Put simply, the supply side simply did not keep pace with the stronger demand side. The result has been higher prices," Lowe said.The "configuration of ongoing increases in indebtedness and rising housing prices has been discussed at length by the Council of Financial Regulators," he said. Lowe assessed APRA's 2014 cap on growth in investor lending as "guidance [that] helped pull the whole system back and has made a positive contribution to overall financial stability.