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www.antipodeanmacro.com
The RBA Board meeting Minutes released this morning confirmed that the Board discussed the merits of a cash rate hike. A key reason why the Board opted to leave the cash rate unchanged was to avoid “excessive fine-tuning”.
This suggests that the Board’s perceived hurdle to tighten monetary policy further remains quite high.
1. Australia’s terms of trade rose 54% between 2015-16 and 2022-23…
…and supported a significant rise in government cash revenue from company tax. Company tax contributed one-third of the total INCREASE in federal government receipts over that period despite only accounting for one-fifth of government receipts.
2. Consumer sentiment in Australia declined slightly in May. On a standardised basis, Australians’ consumer confidence is relatively weak compared with that in the major economies.
3. Australians’ views towards buying major household items has turned down again.
4. Aussie firms continued to report in April that recruiting for high-skilled positions was much harder than for low-skilled jobs.
5. The share of Australian firms expecting to grow their workforce in coming months dipped again in April
6. Data to 19 April show that proposed average annualised wage increase in enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs) lodged with Australia’s Fair Work Commission continued to hover around the 4% mark.
7. Australians continue to view it as a relatively poor time to buy residential property (though there has been a modest increase in Melbourne where prices have been falling).
