Carrington Clarke

The government has already suggested that they will be taking that into account when they're fashioning this budget.

We know that there are going to be substantial cuts to the NDIS.

On the other side, we know defence spending is going to be going up.

It is difficult for them to find the savings to offset that massive increase in defence spending, isn't it?

Yeah, it's going to be fascinating.

And I think also, as we've discussed, the political ramifications, people don't like it if they feel like you've broken a promise.

But as you say, I think the calculation from the government side at this point is that they believe voters want action when it comes to housing affordability and

And so they're willing to forgive a government that goes back on what they said at the last election if it's the correct policy.

We'll see how this plays out because there is going to be a major campaign you would think potentially against it depending on what the opposition decides to take as its policy going forward.

Now, Gareth, I want to focus on a really fascinating article you put together for ABC Online about

where you work through a report from the IMF that runs counter to what has been the accepted wisdom when it comes to interest rates.

And obviously this is a live issue right now with the Reserve Bank trying to deal with inflationary pressures in the economy

and what impact hiking interest rates has on the labour market.

They have a dual mandate.

They're very focused on trying to get price stability or gradual price rises between 2% and 3% when it comes to inflation, but also they're trying to keep full employment.

What did this IMF report find when it came to

interest rate hikes last time around, the last steep increases in interest rates that we saw through the COVID pandemic.

And what does that potentially mean when it comes to setting interest rates?

I mean, part of the difficulty for the Reserve Bank, obviously, the traditional trade-off has been, well, if you're hiking interest rates to try to deal with higher inflation, you know it's going to have a certain impact.

The assumption was that it has an impact on the employment market where it leads to higher unemployment, lower economic growth.