Sharon Zollner

Yes, it absolutely was.

It's been a weird time for data, and so far as the data that's continued to come out about what was happening before...

The Middle East conflict breakout has been stronger than expected.

And then, of course, there's been this sudden stall as everyone's just held off on plans.

But then the very most recent data for May has started to suggest that some of the shock has been wearing off.

And now, of course, well, who knows?

We've got this memorandum of understanding and oil prices have dropped sharply.

So it's been a pretty volatile time.

I think you can sum that up, Ed.

Well, why wouldn't we, really?

I mean, yes, interest rates are a little bit higher and there could absolutely be some wariness that will persist globally, I think.

But our commodity prices are generally excellent.

The New Zealand dollar is quite soft.

I actually, you know, why couldn't we, to some extent, pick up where we left off?

Yeah, so essentially there's been a ridiculously strong correlation between consumer confidence and petrol prices, and inflation more generally.

But even if you just chart it against petrol prices, it's pretty strong.

So everybody hates inflation, which I guess at the end of the day is why we introduced inflation targeting to solve that problem.

But at the moment, a lot of households are financially going backwards, so it makes perfect sense that they're not very happy, particularly low-income households who do spend a lot of their income on food and fuel.

But the drop in crude prices is really good news for New Zealand.

If it holds, of course, that's a big if.