Stephen Koukoulas

The March hike

Certainly hasn't.

And the one that we saw three weeks ago, we haven't got any data on yet, basically, on that one.

So there's a pipeline of monetary policy tightening still permeating its way through the economy, still working through when we get our mortgage repayment schedule or the small business sector gets its overdraft rate sort of bumped up.

It takes a few months for people to realize and to acknowledge and to adjust their behavior to that.

So

Look, I wouldn't hike again on the current figuring.

And it does suggest to me that the unemployment rate with those rate hikes still working their way through that we're going to get an unemployment rate, unfortunately, very close to 5% by the end of the year.

This is the quirkiness of monthly inflation numbers.

I'll put the context of the March result.

It was up 1.1% in the month, and that was when the petrol shock was impacted.

Funnily enough, in April, with the excise cut from the government, don't forget the government's cut off 32 cents a litre, and the price has stabilised.

Anybody just driving around the burbs can sort of see that petrol's lower now than it was a month ago.

So we're actually looking for a fall in the monthly inflation rate, driven by petrol.

There are other things at play too, of course.

There's more to inflation than just petrol.

But we're looking for that annual number to go from 4.6%,

back down to about 3.7% as the initial effect of the excise cut reduction impacts on the headline inflation rate.

So down to about 3.7-ish percent, give or take, but the trimmed mean holding at around about 3.3%.

So excluding petrol and other volatile items, it's still going to be above target, even though we might get a sort of semi-pleasant surprise with the headline figure.