Australians Face Financial Strain as Economic Indicators Show Downward Trend

If the conflict in the Middle East drags on longer than anticipated, Australians may soon find that any glimmer of hope is actually a financial burden rapidly approaching.

In a candid statement, Bullock attributed much of the inflationary strain to the “war on the other side of the world,” which compelled the central bank to make a decisive 8-1 vote to raise the cash rate to 4.35 percent, matching its peak following the pandemic.

During a press conference after Tuesday’s announcement, she highlighted the situation as “a real income shock for Australia and the world.”

“Australians are experiencing financial hardship due to this surge in oil, energy, and other commodity prices,” she explained.

“We are simply poorer now, and there is no avoiding that. The situation is significantly more challenging,” she concluded.

A quick look at the numbers underlying the bank’s reasoning explain some of the doom and gloom.

The RBA board’s Statement on Monetary Policy predicts growth falling to an “anaemic” 1.3 per cent by the end of the year and basically staying there until the middle of 2028, as the unemployment rate ticks slowly towards 5 per cent. 

Yet it still decided to hit mortgage holders with the only blunt tool at its disposal to tackle inflation, which it now expects to hit 4.8 per cent in June, 0.6 percentage points higher than pre-war predictions.

Oxford Economics head of economic research and global trade Harry Murphy Cruise said the forecast “makes for bleak reading” and left the RBA with “little choice but to hike today”.

“Inflation and unemployment are forecast to peak higher, while spending, investment and overall GDP growth will be weaker,” he said. 

“In essence, everything is moving in the wrong direction.”

The bad news doesn’t stop there. The cash rate is expected to hit 4.7 per cent by December and more or less stay there.

All of those predictions are based on the bank’s “baseline” assumption that the war ends “shortly”, the “Strait of Hormuz is reopened soon” and shipping returns to normal by the end of the year.

But that’s just a prediction. The words “uncertain” or “uncertainty” appear 48 times in the document.

The RBA also modelled two worse scenarios based on a longer closure of the strait and potential damage to energy infrastructure driving higher-than-expected energy price rises, which could see GDP 0.8 per cent lower than the baseline and both inflation and unemployment above 5 per cent.

“The longer the strait remains closed, the fewer options the board will have; a prolonged closure would force the RBA’s hand to hike rates multiple times this year to tame inflation and inflation expectations,” Murphy Cruise said.

While Bullock was quick to acknowledge the impact the war had already had and would likely continue to have, stressed it was “not the sole reason”.

“We had an inflation problem before this,” she said.

“People often say to me … you must have a better thing than the interest rate. We don’t. It’s all we have, and we know that affects different people differently. 

“We know that, but it’s the only thing we have to address inflation, and the more important thing in that comment was about the rising costs of all those things. That’s why we have to stop this happening.

“We have to stop inflation because that’s – yes, the mortgage cost is hurting them, but it’s all those other things that are hurting people, the rise in prices of groceries, the rise in price of fuel, all those sorts of things are hurting people.”

Some analysts, such as Westpac chief economist Luci Ellis, even think the RBA is being too optimistic when it comes to the risk of inflation.

“Our own assessment, however, is that there is a bit more near-term inflation to come, both from a higher oil price than future markets imply and greater, more drawn-out second-stage pass-through to other prices, especially in areas such as home-building costs,” she wrote.

She also expressed surprise Bullock appeared to give the green light to businesses to pass on increased fuel and fertiliser costs to customers.

“This stood in contrast to the discussion in the media conference about avoiding pass-through to wages,” she said.

“At several points, the Governor emphasised that the energy price shock ‘makes us all poorer’ and there was nothing that could be done about that.

“In our view, it would have been more helpful to the RBA’s own inflation fight if the Governor had encouraged firms that had the capacity to absorb those cost increases to do so.”

The governor also had a message for Treasurer Jim Chalmers in case he was thinking of dipping his hand into the coffers in next week’s federal budget to help out families struggling to afford fuel and mortgage repayments.

“All I’m saying is that the extent to which government make up the shortfalls for households by giving them more money, it makes it harder to dampen demand,” Bullock said.

Chalmers said his budget next week, which will focus on savings rather than spending, will help bring inflation down.

“We intend to play a helpful role, not a harmful role, in the fight against inflation,” he said.

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