Economic News

That date arrives more than a year and a half from now, and it sits at the end of a forecast path that has been pushed higher in the near term. Understanding why the RBA expects to get there, and what the forecasts assume …

That acceleration is recorded in the November 2026 Statement onMonetary Policy(SMP), released the day the Monetary Policy Board lifted the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.85 per cent.

That figure helps explain why the RBA's headline inflation forecasts jumped between August and November, and why the Monetary Policy Board raised the cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.85 per cent on 3 November.

The revision fades over time but does not disappear. By the end of 2028, the oil price assumption is still 11 per cent higher than it was in August. That pattern, a large near-term increase tapering to a smaller lasting one, is mirrored in …

A quarter of a percentage point may sound minor. But it is the difference between inflation sitting at the midpoint of the RBA's 2–3 per cent target and drifting towards the top of it, more than two years from now.

The SMP sets out an AIDemandscenario in which stronger AI-related demand could keep global growth and inflation higher, and add to domestic capacity and construction cost pressures. It is not a forecast.

The SMP identifies household consumption as a key drag on GDP growth, which has slowed. The Monetary Policy Board's 3 November statement summed up the broader picture in four words: "The economy is slowing."