At home, most of the information coming in suggests the economy has grown at close to an average pace over the past year. This outcome was weaker than we had expected a year ago. It was partly due to the effects of flooding on resource production but also due to softer outcomes in the non-resource side of the economy.
CPI inflation has come down, as expected, as the impact of last summer’s floods on food prices reverse. In underlying terms, inflation was about 2½ per cent over 2011, also a slightly lower outcome than we had, at one point, thought might occur.