Kelly Eckhold

You're not answering the question.

I think people who don't have enough money for food and aren't earning enough money to live... You're not answering the question, Janine.

They should get higher wages, Mark.

And you cut wages and you reduce wages.

Yeah, I think they probably should be raising rates today.

And even coming into this war, we had inflation at 3.1%, which obviously would have been disappointing for the bank.

And the forecast suggests that we'll spend this year above 4% now.

So that will mean that if you think about this decade, six years in this decade, four of them will be inflation over 3%, and actually I think they're all over 4%.

So there's like a whole tribe of young New Zealanders probably been working for three or four years, don't even know what 2% inflation looks like.

Yeah, I mean, but that is how this works.

I mean, there's actually a very strong consensus that inflation are going up this year.

It's actually more or less angels on a pit head debate between economists about whether it happens now in six weeks or in three months time.

But financial markets economists are all suggesting that it's going to be somewhere close to 3% anyway.

So probably not making that much difference really at the margin.

Well, that's an important undercurrent here, right?

That's why, you know, for example, inflation is at 3.1% in the March quarter when it really should be closer to, probably should be under 2% realistically, Mike, given how weak the economy has been in the last couple of years.

And, you know, that's just evidence of, you know, Wayne Brown, he had the opportunity here to make deeper cuts and give us a lower rate rise, but he doesn't feel the pressure.

He doesn't feel the pressure because he's got pricing power and too many of us are quite comfortable in paying it.

Yeah, well, the governor's messaging seems to have suggested they're looking through as much as possible the war.

So they're really kind of hoping that things come right reasonably soon, such that they might not need to do that much in the end.