Interview with The Australian’s Business Editor-at-Large Ticky Fullerton published here on 27^th October – just before the release of the September quarter CPI data. Although that number was in line with what I’d told Ticky that was expected, the ‘underlying’ inflation number was a bit stronger than expected, pushing the annual ‘underlying’ inflation rate into the RBA’s 2-3% target band for the first time in almost six years. That doesn’t mean the RBA is about to raise rates – they’ve said they won’t do that until ‘underlying’ inflation is sustainably within the 2-3% target band, and they’re probably not ready to make that judgement yet. But it might be stretching credibility to continue insisting that they won’t raise rates until 2024.

Australia’s inflation genie is not out of the bottle, yet