The experts at CBA have sounded off on the RBA's latest meeting minutes, as Chief Economist Ryan Feldman restates their position that we're not getting any rate relief on Melbourne Cup day.

The Minutes for the Monetary Policy Board Meeting in September follow a number of communications in recent weeks. The Minutes continue the hawkish tone from all these communications, including Governor Bullock’s appearance before Senate Estimates and the post meeting press conference.

As a reminder the cash rate was left unchanged at 3.60% in September in a unanimous decision.

In short members “agreed that the flow of information since the previous meeting, the forecasts from August and their judgement about the extent of policy restrictiveness collectively implied that there was no need for an immediate reduction in the cash rate target”.

The economy has evolved differently than the RBA expected since the August forecast refresh on several fronts.

Firstly household consumption has been stronger. We have been highlighting the strength in our CBA consumer spending data since March. June quarter household spending data surprised the RBA and the Minutes note “the size of the increase in the June quarter and the fact that consumption had picked up across a wide range of categories over the preceding year suggested that the recovery in household consumption was likely to persist”. Spend data for Q3 to date confirm this recovery holds with momentum continuing to grow in household spending. We will release our CommBank Household Spending data on Thursday for September.

Secondly inflation data has proved to be stickier than expected with the Minutes noting “recent data suggested that inflation in the September quarter may be higher than had been expected in the August Statement on Monetary Policy”. Stronger price data for market services and new dwelling construction costs were flagged in the Minutes and were the key factors we revised up our trimmed mean forecast to 0.8%/qtr and 2.7%/yr.

The stickiness in inflation appears to have opened a can of worms for the RBA. Comparisons to sticky services inflation offshore as well as questioning the size of the output gap have emerged.

The Minutes flag “Members noted that it would be important to see how all these developments are revealed in the September quarterly data and the implications they hold for their assessment of the supply capacity of the economy”. As expected this reinforces the importance of the Q3 25 CPI print due 29/10.

However, the Minutes also flag where the RBA could be wrong. Softer wages growth, a slowdown in employment and weakness in consumer sentiment are highlighted.

The wages story is a key one for us. Our CBA wages tracker indicates wages growth is slowing and currently is not presenting signs of excess that could flow through to inflation. This is a key reason we have inflation moderating in 2026 back towards the midpoint of the target band and the need for the cash rate to sit closer to neutral (~3¼%).

But the risks are building that further rate cuts are not needed for the Australian economy. The NAB business survey today points towards an economy around trend already and the full force of the three rate cuts to date are not yet felt. It reinforces the data dependent and cautious nature of the RBA from here.

Upcoming near term data flow will be important including Thursday’s labour force release. We expect employment to print at 30k and the unemployment rate to remain steady at 4.2% with a slight increase in the participation rate to 66.9%. A material lift in the labour market remains the key near term risk to further easing.

Next stop will be the Q3 CPI. Trent Saunders will release the full preview early next week. We expect trimmed mean CPI to print at 0.8%/qtr and 2.7%/yr.

We also hear from Chief Economist Sarah Hunter today (Wednesday) and Governor Bullock Thursday.

But evidence is building that the onus will be on the data to prove why further rate cuts are needed for the Australian economy.