Dr Sam Wylie

But actually, some inflation, what the Reserve Bank wants is inflation between 2% and 3% per year.

But even if inflation went to 4% or 5% for a while, that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

That could help in many ways.

So let's start with the dishwasher and then we'll go to asset prices in just a second.

So the supply of dishwashers, I mean, these are people we're talking about.

So the supply of people who wash, I'm just making sure I don't say something stupid.

The supply of people who wash dishes or the number of people who wash dishes is much reduced for the catering sector.

because we don't have a lot of foreign students and we don't have a lot of backpacks.

I mean, there's a huge number of backpackers come to Australia, as you know, and a lot of them work in hospitality, a lot of them work in agribusiness, in picking fruit and the like, and then they sort of move backwards and forwards and then they either stay, that's what I personally think is a good thing, or they go home, et cetera.

But that supply of people to do that is dried up.

So now you've got the same amount of demand or you've got returning demand.

You know, in the lockdowns, people can't go to cafes, can't go to pubs, can't go to restaurants.

So hospitality is very constrained.

And you've got a big supply of labour.

So you don't have all of those backpackers and foreign students, but you do have ordinary Australians and you don't have much demand for that labour.

So you've got a big excess supply to demand in the market and the government has to step in.

That's why we have to have JobKeeper and JobSeeker, but especially JobKeeper at that point in the COVID-19 crisis is because a lot of people who were previously working in hospitality, there's no demand for that.

All the restaurants are shut, but everyone's got to live and we all got to carry on with dignity.

So the government has to step in

We're job keeper there.