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Kelly Eckhold: Westpac Chief Economist on GDP data · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: GEDDPT today in quarter four, that's the three months to December. Obviously,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: most economists expected to land around point three point four percent.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: The Reserve Bank was expecting point five percent. Kelly Echld,
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  Speaker 1: Westpac chief economist, Kelly, good morning, Good morning. If it
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: lands where you think it will, which is point four
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: how significant is that? What does it mean for us?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's actually a bit data now, isn't it. I
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: mean we're talking about what happened in the fourth quarter
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: of last year. It will be encouraging that we will
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: have recorded a second consecutive decent quarter of growth, but
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: we're all looking forward to see how this Arab war
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: is going to influence growth sort of through the middle
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: of this year now, and obviously that's where the flock
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: of war is such that it's hard to know.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously that's backward looking, and you've revised down your
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: fore cast I think two point eight percent down from
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: three point three percent for the year, which still doesn't
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: sound like defeat to me. Kelly. How much of this
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: comes down to sentiment and confidence? You know, when we
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: had the Liberation Day last year and businesses tightened, consumers tightened.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: How much of this comes down to how confident we
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  Speaker 1: feel going into it.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it does matter in terms of the
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: size of the impacts. But there are some actual, real
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: economic dislocations occurring out there in the global economy now
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  Speaker 2: because the oil isn't flowing, the fuel isn't flowing, and
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: economies depend on that. I think it's certainly true that
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  Speaker 2: if the confidence and the consumers and the business sector
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  Speaker 2: plunges relatively hard, then we'll get an earlier and larger
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: impact on the economy. I have optimism that, given we've
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: still got very strong commodity prices, the exchange rates helping
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: us out here, and also we've got quite low interest rates,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: that we're very well placed, I think, to whether it
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: compared to what we could have.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Been hard to disagree with that. So what about overnight?
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: I see the oil has gone up again one hundred
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: and eight dollars a barrel. There's a gas field's been hidden.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Then there's the fair that more oil fields will be
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: hit as a result. Does that worry you or is
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  Speaker 1: this just it's up and down at the moment.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: No, I mean this continues to worry me because I
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  Speaker 2: think what the markets are gradually working out here is
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: that It's a long road back to resolution of this issue.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Iran can probably expend relatively little effort to cause quite
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: a lot of damage. And you know, until that straight
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: small moves opens up, then nobody's going to be eating their.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Taco Kelly Echold, Westpac Chief Economists.
• 2:34
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• 2:37
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• 2:41
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