Michael Janda

Music and more.

Music and more.

And I'm ABC Business Editor Michael Yander.

We've had sandwiches.

And importantly, it's a document that gets sent to board members the week before they meet to decide the interest rate decision.

So they would have got this at the end of last week and had the weekend to peruse it before their board meeting.

I'm not sure it really is more clear cut, but obviously the board members thought so.

Clearly, since the last meeting, the conflict in the Middle East has dragged on.

I think there was more hope in mid-March that there would be a quick resolution

to the conflict, a settlement that reopened the Strait of Hormuz and allowed oil and gas to flow freely out of the Middle East.

That clearly hasn't happened.

There's still no real sign that it's imminent.

We've seen further action overnight disrupting shipping in the Strait, despite US claims of getting ships out.

It's all very an unclear situation.

Even for Reserve Bank officials, it must be an absolute nightmare to take these kind of decisions.

But obviously it's adding to inflation pressure the longer this international energy supply crunch and price crunch goes on.

And they just want to head it off at the pass by getting interest rates up and absolutely stamping out any idea that inflation is going to be allowed to continue to rise unchecked.

What's happened is we've heard for years, since the Philip Lowe as RBA governor days, about this narrow path that the RBA has been walking, which is to get inflation down and under control and back to the middle of its 2% to 3% target, but without tipping the economy into recession.

What the Middle East oil crisis has done is make that path that was already narrow...

wafer thin.