Aug 16, 2026 · 40 min · 15 segments
The RBNZ recently hiked the OCR from 2.25% to 2.5%, and experts are expecting around another 1% of hikes over the next year, as managing inflation risks take priority over the weaker economy. But…
Hamish PepperGuest
Tim BeveridgeHost
And I mean, the overall theme is, are you worried about further hikes to the Reserve Bank interest rate? Can the New Zealand economy cope with it? Absolutely.
How is your feelings about how much it's going to affect us if the Reserve Bank go, look, we're going to have to do another? I mean, do you have a prediction on what you think they're going to do?
I mean, obviously, it's probably worth referencing the market as in the financial market, you know, wisdom of crowds.
And so just on that basis, you would assume that, you know, we can continue to grow through that.
The other part of it is it's already in things like mortgage rates, you know, they're pricing off what those financial markets are saying, which is why you're seeing mortgage rates around that sort of average level, you know, in terms of recent period of time, that 5%.
But, yeah, I think we're looking for the evidence as this sort of growth builds out of what looks to have been a pretty flat second quarter of the year.
You know, that's when obviously we saw the greatest increases in petrol prices, for example.
So, yeah, we're looking very carefully at just how much strength is emerging in this third quarter that we're in.
And there's other indicators at a company level that suggest there's some confidence building in terms of employment and investment, for example.
Because I think it was Kelly Echold who I saw the Westpac economist talked about the – and I think I heard on the back of it Mike Hosking saying, look, the – whatever it was, was over the cost of living crisis is over because it stopped inflation.
You know, it stopped getting worse, but my analogy would be for, well, there's a, it's like, if you've built a wall, nobody's knocked any bricks out of the wall.
Um, I think there was sort of interpretation with the headlines that, oh, everything's great, but, uh, it's still, it's not.
I'm totally with you that, uh, yeah, we have to be really careful when we celebrate inflation.
And I mean, the overall theme is, are you worried about further hikes to the Reserve Bank interest rate? Can the New Zealand economy cope with it? Absolutely.
How is your feelings about how much it's going to affect us if the Reserve Bank go, look, we're going to have to do another? I mean, do you have a prediction on what you think they're going to do?
I mean, obviously, it's probably worth referencing the market as in the financial market, you know, wisdom of crowds.
And so just on that basis, you would assume that, you know, we can continue to grow through that.
The other part of it is it's already in things like mortgage rates, you know, they're pricing off what those financial markets are saying, which is why you're seeing mortgage rates around that sort of average level, you know, in terms of recent period of time, that 5%.
But, yeah, I think we're looking for the evidence as this sort of growth builds out of what looks to have been a pretty flat second quarter of the year.
You know, that's when obviously we saw the greatest increases in petrol prices, for example.
So, yeah, we're looking very carefully at just how much strength is emerging in this third quarter that we're in.
And there's other indicators at a company level that suggest there's some confidence building in terms of employment and investment, for example.
Because I think it was Kelly Echold who I saw the Westpac economist talked about the – and I think I heard on the back of it Mike Hosking saying, look, the – whatever it was, was over the cost of living crisis is over because it stopped inflation.
You know, it stopped getting worse, but my analogy would be for, well, there's a, it's like, if you've built a wall, nobody's knocked any bricks out of the wall.
Um, I think there was sort of interpretation with the headlines that, oh, everything's great, but, uh, it's still, it's not.
I'm totally with you that, uh, yeah, we have to be really careful when we celebrate inflation.
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