Stephen Koukoulas

And the risk of weak growth, high unemployment.

That's what we have to wait and see over the next few months, whether we actually get that.

Yeah, how quickly could that become an issue?

Really quickly, I think the bottom line is it can happen quite quickly, that we consumers in particular are very, very alert and...

and susceptible to, well, higher interest rates and higher petrol prices.

And while there's been a little bit of a pullback in petrol prices with the excise relief from the government and a few things like that, we are still exceedingly nervous.

And if you believe those consumer sentiment numbers, and I do, and the correlation still holds between the broad trends in consumer sentiment and broad trends in household spending, we could be seeing, when we get the numbers, for April,

May, June being incredibly weak.

And well, that's the June quarter.

And if they are weak, and you've also got the business side of the economy cooling off a little bit.

Do you get a negative GDP result on top of a 4.5%, 5% inflation rate when we get the June quarter data in a few months' time?

That would be the chaotic and dreadful scenario for the economy.

I'll move to the second part first, the budget, and even though that's still, what's that, roughly two weeks away.

You've got the signs that the government can move

pull cash out of the economy.

It can sort of take some pressure off inflation.

And the government's been very vulnerable, if you like, to the old record government spending.

It's adding to inflation pressures.

And I think they're very sensitive to that criticism.

So as we saw with the NDIS decision last week, that was a big deal.