Anthony McDonald

And we're even retesting some of that now.

I agree with you.

That's what elections are going to be determined by.

Huge week, James, on the economics front.

You know, data, soft data, hard data, you name it, we got it.

The first one is consumer sentiment and business confidence.

Separate surveys, what the economists call the soft data, you know, that's how you're feeling sort of surveys, how likely are you to order, what do you think about life, are you going to employ more people, spend more money, all that sort of stuff.

Both of them crashed, like really crashed, like the biggest one-month drop in both since the pandemic to be at their worst since the pandemic.

It's a serious, serious drop in consumer sentiment and business confidence.

I mean, it wasn't surprising to see both had soured.

Yes, businesses and households have just been slapped with two interest rate rises.

Plus, you've got inflation's a problem again.

Michelle Bullock's talking pretty tough.

We've got petrol prices now.

There's potential for petrol and diesel shortages, which is a real headache for business, probably more so than price.

So if we just look at the business survey, I mean, it was conducted from the 24th to the 31st of March.

Okay.

Cast your mind back, James.

That was when the sort of sentiment around the Orion Wall was probably at its lowest.

The view of it had gone from, all right, this is just a quick trip to fix up a couple of things to, uh-oh, the oil shock's real and this could really last a while.