Q+A: The Week Ahead | 1 June 2026
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What economic indicators are being discussed this week?
Welcome to Fear and Greed Q&A, where we ask and answer questions about business, investing, economics, politics, and more. I'm Michael Thompson, and every Monday morning we're joined by economist Stephen Koukoulis to look at the week ahead. You'll find him at thekouk.com, that's T-H-E-K-O-U-K.com, and sharing his views on LinkedIn as well. Stephen, good morning. Very good morning, Michael. Now, we've got a fair bit coming up this week, including the GDP figures, which we'll talk about in a moment. But I wanted to just touch on last week's inflation numbers. These were the April inflation figures. Came in a little softer than expected and couple that with the household spending that we saw last week as well, showing some signs of softening.
Can we now say that a June rate hike is completely off the table?
Absolutely.
Look, I think the short answer is yes. It's not just the inflation numbers. And as you said, the household spending numbers were very weak, but it's in concert with what's happening on the labour market. We saw the figures a couple of weeks ago showing a rise in the unemployment rate. But from last week, the inflation numbers came in a little bit better than expected. The headline inflation was still 4.2%. So that's still very, very high. There's Part of the unwind of the electricity subsidies impacting the annual figures and the like, but the trimmed mean 3.4%, so still about a percentage point above where the RBA would like it. But there appears to be a consolidation around that 3.25% to 3.5% for inflation.
And of course, the impact of the rate hikes hasn't really kicked in yet. So when the economy is starting to slow down, when you've got the inflation numbers topping out, I think we can squarely say the RBA may want to just sit tight, see the impact of the three rate hikes so far in 2026, see their impact on the economy. And June looks to be on hold and we'll wait for the next round of labour market and inflation numbers again in the months ahead.
You mentioned that headline figure of 4.2%. Jim Chalmers, the Treasurer, was speaking last week and said that if it wasn't for the fuel excise cut that the government had introduced, that the headline rate would have been closer to 4.7%. What happens when that temporary cut to the petrol excise comes off and the price goes back up? Is the hope just that by the time that happens, that things will have settled down globally and then you won't actually see this sudden spike back up again?
I think you've nailed it in one. Yes, the excise cut is due to end at the end of June, so about four weeks from now, and the price of petrol over and above what's happening globally will go back up by that 32 cents a litre, and the government's hoping, hoping, hoping that the oil price globally does drop to sort of cushion that effect. But, you know, the Treasurer's right in one respect that, yes, that was partly... the reason why the inflation rate in headline terms dropped. And when the excise cut reverses, when it ends, 1st of July, then we'll see the July-August numbers being higher because the petrol price is going up. So again, this is the classic reason, you've nailed it here, Michael, why we look at the trimmed mean or the underlying inflation rate, because the
as we saw last year with the electricity subsidies as we're seeing right now with the petrol excise adjustments if i can call them that you know it does impact on the headline inflation rate but it really does not mean that inflation from an rba monetary policy management perspective is is really part of their equation they're looking for demand pressures either being too strong or too weak relative to supply and that's why they're adjusting rates
Well, one thing that the RBA is going to be watching very, very closely this week will be the big one, the GDP figures for the March quarter. What are we expecting to see?
How did last week's inflation numbers affect the June rate hike?
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%.
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