Stephen Koukoulas

Yeah, we're expecting actually a reasonable result.

I think a figure around about 0.6% quarter on quarter.

which is not bad.

The annual figure will be just a little bit below 3%.

So the first quarter of 2026 was actually okay in terms of economic growth.

We saw last week too some CapEx capital expenditure numbers being very strong.

Data centres again driving that, but hey, that's real economic activity.

so the bottom line gdp numbers are probably being okay but a little bit like the petrol price effect in the month of march so for one third of the quarter the quarter's january february march there was this big boost in spending as people topped up their petrol tanks and filled up jerry cans and the like so that will probably just add about 0.1 to bottom line gdp that will not be there

In the June quarter data, sorry to be a little bit all over the place on these numbers, but it's a really important thing to think about that these numbers are going to be, again, a little artificially strong.

The RBA will be pleased to see the economy growing, but it'll be very well aware that there's going to be a bit of an unwind when we get the June quarter numbers.

What you've ripped open there is the can of worms of productivity back in the olden days.

And the olden days is only 10 years ago.

We used to get quarterly GDP growth of around about 0.8%, so three and a quarter annualized, which was not bad.

what we're seeing now is that figures now around about 2%, 2% to 2.5%, according whether it's the RBA or Treasury that you listen to.

So 0.6 is sort of the new trend, if you like.

And if we grow much faster than that, we get demand pressures, we get inflation pressures and the like.

Really important.

And again, it's very hard to judge what questions shall be asked by the Senate.

My hunch is it'll be all focused on the implications of these tax policy, the capital gains tax, negative gearing and trust tax changes, their impact on the economy and inflation.

So there'll be a