James Thompson

Oh, well, look, headline inflation went from 4.6% to 4.2%.

That sounds good, doesn't it?

Sounds great.

Until you start looking at the detail, of course, and that had a lot to do with the cut to the fuel exhaust, which we don't pay for now, but our kids and our grandkids will pay for it.

Forever.

In forever, that's right.

And I guess the bad news was that underlying inflation actually ticked a bit higher, 3.4% up from 3.3% the month earlier.

Anthony, these inflation numbers are important, but it's all coming.

We really are only now starting to see...

the effects of the energy shock created by the Iran war coming through, higher plastics prices, higher food prices, all that sort of stuff, it's still to come.

And I think it'll still roll out really across the balance of the rest of this calendar year.

So I don't think anyone in the RBA headquarters in Martin Place in Sydney will be celebrating.

They still have to be really watchful.

And I think there's still at least one more rate hike to come.

Oh, it's massive.

Yeah?

It's one of those things I've been writing about it and talking about it for the best part of 25 years and hadn't been there.

So when Rio Tinto said they could take us up to their Western Range mine, which is only like 18 months old-

A group of us from the AFR jumped at the chance.

We caught the plane early on Monday morning up to a place called Parabadoo, which is a town entirely invented for iron ore mining, with a plane load full of FIFO workers in their high-vis.