When the history of this 2022 federal election is written it seems likely that Tuesday, May 3 will be pegged as the moment that a possible change of government, hardened towards something approaching inevitable.
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In deciding that the economy was running too hot, that government spending was beyond wise, and that inflationary forces were too strong - some of them external, to be fair - the Reserve Bank board figuratively pulled the red chair lever from Graham Norton's hit TV chat show.
For those unfamiliar with the segment, a guest is invited to sit in a red armchair and tell a personal story and if it gets too ridiculous or inappropriate, Norton pulls and lever and the chair tips backwards mid-sentence sending the guest off into oblivion.
The central bank seems to have concluded these things about the Coalition's preening story of conservative budget management.
Pointedly, it is saying that monetary policy will do what the architects of fiscal policy would not bring themselves to do this side of an election.
Citing the likelihood of wages growth (something the Coalition will no doubt claim it is delivering on after nearly a decade), the gun-shy RBA chose an orthodox rise of 25 basis points to set the cash rate at a slightly unorthodox 0.35 per cent.
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Ominously, this is only the first in a series of rate rises that will make housing less affordable just as other essential household outgoings are themselves going up.
Labor calls it the triple whammy of flat wages, soaring living costs and rising interest rates.
Voters are noticing. They have no choice. As a fixed cost, housing soaks up around a third of household income.
"The board judged that now was the right time to begin withdrawing some of the extraordinary monetary support ... inflation has picked up more quickly, and to a higher level, than was expected ... this will require a further lift in interest rates over the period ahead," Governor Philip Lowe warned.
The Coalition went into this campaign boasting that it had the settings right, that it was the most cautious manager of the economy, and the safest pair of hands on defence and national security.
In the space of just weeks, it has been found to have dithered as Beijing successfully duchessed Honiara right under Australia's nose, and now the central bank has passed a withering judgement on the Coalition's loose fiscal discipline.
Just weeks from polling day, no less.
The last time that happened was in 2007. Back then, there was a similar feel of momentum loss as a once dominant government drifted cluelessly towards the abyss, the last of the Coalition Koolaid still dripping from its bewildered chin.