Having said that, there is still plenty of capacity for the banks to tap their covered bond lines if they have the need. https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2019/sp-ag-2019-03-19.html  6/19  3/19/2019  Bonds and Benchmarks | Speeches | RBA  Graph 6  Non-Financial Corporations Over 2018, non-financial corporation spreads followed those of financial corporations, and by extension, spreads in global markets (Graph 7).
Issuance in the second half of 2018 was quite low, and the market is off to a slow start in 2019. However, with yields still low, this doesn't appear to be a story about companies finding it difficult to obtain funding in bond markets.