Carrington Clarke

Reserve Bank Assistant Governor.

She said, at the moment, the Reserve Bank has a pretty pessimistic view of the Australian economy.

They really don't think the economy can be growing at much more than 2% without hitting constraints, which cause inflation to rise.

The last GDP numbers indicate that we're running slightly above that.

And so that's one of the concerns.

It's slowed down substantially.

Absolutely.

One of the things I thought she said that was interesting is that we have seen an impact in confidence, not just because of the rate hikes, but also what's happening globally.

But she said there hasn't been a material impact on spending or an investment.

Now, as you say, most of that investment seems to be about data centers, which don't seem to be particularly sensitive to interest rates.

And she points out that the three rate hikes the Reserve Bank has imposed are

haven't washed through completely through the economy.

And not even getting close.

The governor was asked to buy into some political debates, including the fuel excise cut lapsing at the end of this month.

It seemed pretty obvious to me, watching her from a distance, that she did not want to engage in that question at all and kind of said, oh, there's lots of

things at play, we don't have a particular view, and that the Reserve Bank will kind of look through the noise of excise cuts.

What was your take in the room?

Do you think they do have a view on whether or not this excise cut should continue, or does it really not matter when it comes to their calculations?

You point out that the Reserve Bank is just a relatively small player in a big global market.

We have had some decisions made by other central banks over the last couple of weeks.