Stephen Koukoulas

You think they might hike a bit more, they might not.

Oh, yes, they will.

Oh, maybe they won't now.

And so you get this evolution of ideas coming through from news and events.

And that's what makes it so interesting.

And right now...

The troubling thing that our friends at the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Board meeting today and tomorrow will be confronting is a real checkerboard of news.

On inflation, you would hike.

On the growth outlook and the risk for unemployment, you'd pause.

And that's where sensible people can have a really hearty discussion.

The end point will be a really difficult decision to make, whatever they do.

If you're expecting to get punched in the nose three times, you're going to get punched in the nose twice.

It's a good outcome.

So we had that punch in the nose from the inflation numbers.

They were high, unambiguously.

The petrol effect was there in the headline figure.

So the annual growth of 4.6%.

Yeah, that's really high.

But a full percentage point of that was just petrol.

And so that was the shock that we've been talking about and it's volatile and it's probably going to be down in the month of April when we get those numbers in a month's time.