Chris Richardson

And if inflation is too much money chasing too little stuff, it was a real problem.

And we had in the week or two leading up to this week's budget, some state budgets, right?

You know, Victoria or Western Australia, and they have, right?

And so Victoria's got no money, but they still spent some more on their punters.

Western Australia's got heaps and heaps of money, but they spent more on their punters.

And you could just hear the teeth start to grind at the Reserve Bank, the states being part of the problem.

And their fear would have been that maybe the federal government would do as it did a

Because an energy crisis is one where the budget is better off, but families are worse off.

Families are poorer, as the governor pointed out.

The temptation for governments to hand over some money is very high.

To this government's credit, it has not extended things like that fuel tax cut.

It hasn't handed out too much money.

But I'm cautious of saying that they haven't made life a little more complex for the Reserve Bank, or at least I'd say they haven't helped the Reserve Bank.

So the last big budget update we got ahead of Christmas about five months ago.

The estimate of spending in the financial year we're just about to start was $811 billion.

Do I hate myself that I know that number?

Yes.

And then the update we got in the budget, it was no longer $811 billion in spending.

It was $830 billion in spending.

that extra 18, 19 billion.