Latest / Best of Business / Murray Olds: Australian correspondent on the RBA hiking the OCR up again amid inflation concerns

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Murray Olds: Australian correspondent on the RBA hiking the OCR up again amid inflation concerns · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talk said be
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  Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Murray Old's Australia correspondent with us now Heymus afternoon. Heaven
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  Speaker 2: right up for the second time this year.
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  Speaker 3: That's right, second time in two months, and maybe another
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  Speaker 3: one well almost certainly another one in May. And what
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  Speaker 3: that would do would be to take it back to
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  Speaker 3: where it was at start of the cutting cycle, back
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  Speaker 3: in twenty twenty five, back to four point three five percent.
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  Speaker 3: It was three point whatever it was before they went
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  Speaker 3: into the meeting, three point eight. Interesting. I'm just looking
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  Speaker 3: at the statement from the Central Bank. Here the Reserve
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  Speaker 3: Board Bank, the ninth person board voted five to four
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  Speaker 3: to increase the cash rate. Four members said no, we're
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  Speaker 3: going to leave it alone. So that's interesting that that
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  Speaker 3: division is there. But the board has said here, look,
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  Speaker 3: inflation's picking up. In fact, if this least in crisis
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  Speaker 3: keeps going. In terms of fuel prices, fuel feeds into
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  Speaker 3: everything diesel and petrol. Australia lives on diesel. That's ninety
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  Speaker 3: six percent of Australia's fuel is refined in Asia, in
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  Speaker 3: Korea mainly and in Singapore. Four percent is refined here
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  Speaker 3: in Australia. The two measly little refineries that Australia still
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  Speaker 3: has left, so very much depending on the rest of
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  Speaker 3: the world. And if the straits of Hormuz are still closed,
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  Speaker 3: that means there be very little supplies coming in here.
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  Speaker 3: The government hasn't ruled out rationing either, which is interesting.
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  Speaker 3: That was the Defense Minister Richard Miles this morning. The
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  Speaker 3: government has released some from the emergency stockpile. But the
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  Speaker 3: start and finish of all of this is that there's
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  Speaker 3: inflationary pressures that are building in the Australian economy right
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  Speaker 3: ahead of the budget coming down in May, and the
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  Speaker 3: Reserve Bank is voted five to four to be on
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  Speaker 3: the cautious side. They can always wind it back, I guess.
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  Speaker 3: But if they don't do it now and they meet
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  Speaker 3: again in May and this war is continuing in in Iran,
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  Speaker 3: well do they then go with half a percentage point
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  Speaker 3: instead of a quarter which would you know, it would
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  Speaker 3: be a hell of a shock to the Australian economy.
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  Speaker 3: So many moving parts here. That the unemployment rate currently
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  Speaker 3: at a very historically low level of four point one percent, well,
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  Speaker 3: it's going to have to go up to take some
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  Speaker 3: of the heat out of the economy as well, more
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  Speaker 3: people out of work. A lot of those people have
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  Speaker 3: got mortgages. It's a conundrum. That's one that's well above
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  Speaker 3: my pay grape.
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  Speaker 2: So do you think the failure of the government to
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  Speaker 2: rule out the fuel rationing, does that sound to you
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  Speaker 2: like they want to keep that open as a realistic option.
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  Speaker 3: It's an option, isn't it. Yeah? I mean I did
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  Speaker 3: hear Miles was on the ABC on ABC television this
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  Speaker 3: morning and I watched him. I watched the interview who
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  Speaker 3: and I heard what he said. It did ring like
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  Speaker 3: alarm bells in the back of my head, a bit
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  Speaker 3: like the Reserve Bank perhaps moving now to avoid the
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  Speaker 3: possibility of half a point rise in May. Miles, maybe
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  Speaker 3: throwing it out there because don't forget. I mean, I'm
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  Speaker 3: sure I mentioned this to you last week. There was
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  Speaker 3: one service station up in northern New South Wales and
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  Speaker 3: Armadale I think from memory, that's about six hours north
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  Speaker 3: of Sydney, that was selling unleaded fuel three dollars forty.
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  Speaker 3: Now the average pump price here in Sydney did this
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  Speaker 3: afternoon's around the two dollars forty mark so somebody's making
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  Speaker 3: money up north. And the Australian consumer watchdog, the Consumer
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  Speaker 3: and Competition Commission, they hauled in the big fuel supplies
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  Speaker 3: this morning for talks I think in Canberra, basically saying well,
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  Speaker 3: you've got to justify these prices. People. BP was in
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  Speaker 3: their Ampole Chevron ex On Mobile seven eleven, as well
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  Speaker 3: as a huge petrol player over here. All these different
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  Speaker 3: companies were hauled in and asked to justify their prices.
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  Speaker 3: We haven't yet seen the outcome of that, buz.
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  Speaker 2: I suppose everybody's buying evs in fact. In fact us
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  Speaker 2: talking to the guys from BYD in New Zealand, they
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  Speaker 2: said there was some ridiculous number like about eight hundred
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  Speaker 2: byds that got sold in in Australia on Saturday alone.
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  Speaker 3: I wouldn't be surprised, is that well, I said, that's
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  Speaker 3: a new stat to me, and I'm grateful to you
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  Speaker 3: because I'm very interested in this. I've got some good
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  Speaker 3: contacts with the Electric Vehicle Council of Australia and not
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  Speaker 3: surprisingly they were pumping up the tires of EV sales
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  Speaker 3: this morning. There were ninety thousand new vehicles sold in
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  Speaker 3: Australia in February, electric vehicles are record twelve percent of
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  Speaker 3: those sales plug in hybrids. Right, the plug in electric
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  Speaker 3: hybrids up by twenty percent now in twenty twenty five,
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  Speaker 3: nearly forty percent I bought. There were one point two
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  Speaker 3: four million new cars sold last year in Australia. One
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  Speaker 3: hundred and sixty thousand of those were electric vehicles. And
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  Speaker 3: they gave me some stats this morning, Heather. If you're
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  Speaker 3: driving a petrol powered car one hundred kilometers an hour
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  Speaker 3: with fuel two dollars per liter, it's going to cost
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  Speaker 3: you twenty two dollars when fuel goes to three dollars
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  Speaker 3: a liter. To Heaven help us, that same hundred case
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  Speaker 3: is going to cost you in your petrol car thirty
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  Speaker 3: three dollars thirty. Have a listen to EV's. They can
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  Speaker 3: be charged to capacity the evening peak six o'clock. There's
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  Speaker 3: the evening peak for charging EV's in Australia. You can
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  Speaker 3: charge the car to capacity for five dollars ninety. To
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  Speaker 3: do those one hundred k's at noon, it's going to
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  Speaker 3: cost you a dollar twenty. So you do the sums
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  Speaker 3: a dollar twenty compared to what thirty three dollars. I
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  Speaker 3: know why they're buying evs. And the other big point
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  Speaker 3: about all of this there are so many different models
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  Speaker 3: now BYDS. That's just one of them. You go cherries,
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  Speaker 3: you get all sorts of different Chinese vehicles coming in
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  Speaker 3: and they are like rolls royces that can fly to
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  Speaker 3: the bloody moon. Just about all the bells whistles, I've got,
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  Speaker 3: it's extraordinary. Love it.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, thanks Mars, you look after yourself and enjoy your
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  Speaker 2: new EV Murray Olds, Australia correspondent.
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