We have seen some decline in spending on housing, and a slowing in the growth of household borrowing and consumption spending, but these changes have been fairly modest compared with earlier episodes, partly because there are regions of the country where the resources boom has continued to boost house prices and household demand.
The run-up in household borrowing has also raised, on occasion, and quite naturally, questions about how sustainable all this was, and whether there was a build-up of exposures in the household sector and the financial system that could impair financial or macroeconomic stability at some future time.