Received

Tortured for almost 30 minutes, Cian English broke free and fled to a Gold Coast apartment balcony trying to escape.

Tragically, the 19-year-old fell to his death.

Mr English and his friends had earlier started socialising with a group staying in the apartment directly above them in the Surfers Paradise complex in May 2020.

Lachlan Paul Soper-Lagas, Hayden Paul Kratzmann and Jason Ryan Knowles were among the group partying in the fourth floor unit above.

Throughout the evening both groups amicably interacted in each other's apartments.

However, all that changed after 1.40am when Mr English and a friend were accused of stealing Kratzmann's prescription drugs.

For 27 minutes Mr English and his friend were tortured and threatened with a knife, with their items and clothing stolen.

Throughout the ordeal, two girls - both aged 16 - filmed on their phones, later uploading nine videos on social media.

In one video Kratzmann looked directly into a phone camera and said: "This is what happens when you steal from me".

Kratzmann, Soper-Lagas and Knowles were unaware that the drugs had actually been stolen by an associate.

Mr English eventually broke free and ran to the balcony after Kratzmann twice asked: "do you want to get killed?".

It was most likely Mr English was trying to climb down to his unit below when he fell, crown prosecutor Caroline Marco told Brisbane Supreme Court on Thursday.

"The escalating violence and continuing demands from the victims for their property until they virtually had nothing left to give was real and gave rise to a genuine fear ... in Mr English of further harm ... if he did not take action to flee the situation," Ms Marco said.

Despite knowing Mr English was lying critically injured from the fall, Soper-Lagas, Kratzmann and Knowles packed up and left.

More than 30 minutes after the 19-year-old fell, Kratzmann rang triple zero using a mobile phone stolen from Mr English's friend.

He told the operator he was a late night bike rider and had seen someone lying on the ground who was "not looking too good".

Kratzmann, Soper-Lagas and Knowles were later seen with clothing or property taken from Mr English and his friend, with the former posting pictures on Instagram.

"The wearing of the victims' clothing or items of their property by each of them ... and Mr Kratzmann then posting that photograph on Instagram like it was a badge of accomplishment ... is abhorrent," Ms Marco said.

Kratzmann later wrote crude graffiti about Mr English's death at a train station after breaking into a Queensland Health building.

He told police he was trying to "teach the victims a lesson" for lying and stealing from him.

Mr English was found unresponsive by emergency services and was pronounced dead at 3.53am.

He sustained multiple internal and external injuries from the fall.

Nine other injuries may have been sustained during the apartment ordeal, a pathologist said.

They included a 15mm- long, 16mm-deep stab wound near the elbow.

A large contingent of the English family - including some who had travelled from overseas - packed the court on Thursday.

Mr English's heartbroken mother Siobhan and brother Dylan were among the many who had devastating victim impact statements read in court.

Knowles, 25, Soper-Lagas, 21, and Kratzmann, 23, on Thursday pleaded not guilty to murder and had that charge withdrawn.

However, they pleaded guilty to manslaughter as well as other charges including two counts of torture.

They are set to be sentenced by Chief Justice Helen Bowskill on Friday.

© AAP 2023

Better housing policy, a bigger role for government in keeping the economy in good health, and less "vitriol, personal attacks and clickbait" in the public sphere have all made Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe's parting wishlist.

Dr Lowe is due to step down as head of Australia's central bank late this month, passing the reins to deputy governor, Michele Bullock.

Making some final remarks at a speech to the Anika Foundation on Thursday, Dr Lowe commented on the role of interest rates in the housing market.

"Interest rates influence housing prices, but they are not the reason that Australia has some of the highest cost of housing in the world," he said.

Rather, the high cost of housing in Australia was a "serious economic and social problem" stemming from a range of choices made "as a society".

"Choices about where we live, how we design our cities, and zone and regulate urban land, how we invest in and design transport systems, and how we tax land and housing investment," he said.

Dr Lowe also called for a "stronger helping hand" from the government to manage the economy.

Interest rates were effective but had limitations, not least the fact their impacts were felt unevenly across the economy, he said.

Some innovative thinking would be needed to do this, Dr Lowe said, and some rejigging of existing architecture.

"In particular, it would require making some fiscal instruments more nimble, strengthening the (semi) automatic stabilisers and giving an independent body limited control over some fiscal instruments."

He also acknowledged the difficulties he had faced communicating in the digital age.

There were learnings to be gleaned from his ill-communicated forward guidance - that interest rates would not start rising until 2024 - that landed him in hot water.

But he stressed this was not a "promise", but guidance with conditions attached, noting this was one of many points attributed to him inaccurately in his time as governor.

Dr Lowe said he had not made points such as "...everybody needs to get a flatmate, people need to work more hours to make ends meet and young adults should stay at home because of the rental crisis".

While acknowledging that some of his explanations had "missed the mark", he said "the media has some responsibility too".

"My view is that we will get better outcomes if the public square is filled with facts and nuanced and informed debate, rather than vitriol, personal attacks and clickbait."

He also reiterated his concerns about sluggish productivity and warned of a more uncertain era for maintaining price stability.

"The increased prevalence of supply shocks, deglobalisation, climate change, the energy transition and shifts in demographics mean either steeper supply curves or more variable supply curves," he said.

© AAP 2023

A stronger helping hand from government to keep prices stable and the economy humming has been offered up as a parting suggestion by outgoing Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe.

In his final speech as governor, Dr Lowe said more flexibility to pull spending and taxing levers to manage the economy and keep inflation stable could "help us get to a better place".

Interest rates were effective but had limitations, including that their impacts were felt unevenly across the economy.

"In principle, fiscal policy could provide a stronger helping hand, although this would require some rethinking of the existing policy architecture," Dr Lowe told the Anika Foundation on Thursday.

Dr Lowe suggested handing over limited powers to adjust spending and taxing policy to an independent body - not the Reserve Bank - as one possible model to explore.

He flagged the COVID-19 pandemic era as a period of "nimble" fiscal policy and powerful co-ordination between the RBA and government.

"There are some broader lessons here," he said.

Dr Lowe is due to step down as head of Australia's central bank late this month, passing the reins to deputy governor Michele Bullock.

His final speech had few implications for interest rate settings more immediately and the fight against high inflation.

Since May last year, the RBA has hiked interest rates 12 times but at the past three meetings, the cash rate has been kept on hold.

Dr Lowe refused to be drawn on the September call and instead used the opportunity to highlight a host of broader concerns.

He warned of an era of prices swinging up and down due to climate change, deglobalisation and other worrying developments.

"My view is that it will be difficult to return to the earlier world in which inflation tracked in a very narrow range," he said.

The high cost of housing in Australia as a "serious economic and social problem" also featured, along with the threat of sluggish productivity growth.

Dr Lowe said lacklustre productivity growth was broadly a "political problem".

"If we can't build a consensus for changes, the economy will drift and there is a material risk that our living standards will stagnate," he warned.

The difficulties of communicating in the digital age were also addressed.

While acknowledging that some of his explanations had "missed the mark", Dr Lowe said "the media has some responsibility too".

"My view is that we will get better outcomes if the public square is filled with facts and nuanced and informed debate, rather than vitriol, personal attacks and clickbait," he said.

Ms Bullock, the first female governor, will step into the top job on September 18.

© AAP 2023