Exchanges With Evan Lucas

Podcast

Sarah Hunter

Assistant Governor (Economic)

14 October 2025

–

Online

Evan Lucas

Sarah, welcome to exchanges. I need to start first and foremost with the question you guys get asked

almost every single meeting and almost every Senate inquiry. How are you viewing the transition in

inflation back to the target range?

Sarah Hunter

Thanks, Evan. And it’s a real pleasure to be here with you today. Thank you for having me on the

show. Yeah. No. And it’s obviously the question that’s been occupying, our minds here at

the reserve Bank. Well, for the last few years, really, I’m generally speaking, you know, touch

wood. We think the transition is going pretty well. We’ve now managed to get inflation down from

almost 8% where it was at the end of 2022. We’re now coming in, and inside the target band for

trimmed mean that’s underlying inflation. So that’s what we look at to cut out all the

noise and the things that are volatile and can jump up and down and so now we’ve managed to get

that back down to under 3%. So, we’re inside our 2 to 3% target. So really the job from

here for us is that we want to get it to the midpoint of that target. We don’t want to be, sort

of skirting the top because that means we could pop out and that wouldn’t be right. We equally

don’t want to be skirting the bottom of the bank, because then we might risk, dropping out the

other side. And that’s also not good. So, we want to try and keep it in the middle. Around 2.5%.

But that’s the job from here, on is what do we have to do to the cash rate policy settings to

try and keep inflation where we are? Keep the economy, on a steady queue.

Evan Lucas

So on that, some of the things that sort of talk about that sort of skirting to the top and the

bottom that people are pointing out and services inflation is one that clearly is, you know, touching

the top of the band and obviously takes longer to get through, whereas the bottom coats inflation and

things like that is, is at the bottom. What are those two, occupying your minds more because services

as I say, it takes longer and is a broader part of the Australian economy. Is that where you are sort

of leading to at the moment?

Sarah Hunter

Yeah, no. And it’s a really good question. And you can sort of, think of it in two ways,

actually. If firstly, if you sort of take a long history of looking at inflation, data, which I do,

and I’ll get into absolutely into the weeds, what you’ll see is that it’s not uncommon

in history for different goods to have different inflation rates. So very, very rare. In fact, I

don’t think we’ve ever experienced this, where every single part of the CPI, every single

good and service, has been increasing at 2.5% at just doesn’t happen. It’s pretty common

for goods in general, to have a lower inflation rate than services. And there’s lots of reasons

for that. We benefit from being in a small open economy. We get, globalization flowing through and

the NZ productivity, improvements that push down on the price of goods in particular. And you tend to

see less of that on the services side. So, in and of itself, I’m not too worried if I see goods

running a bit slower and services running a bit stronger, because that’s what we normally see in

in history. Having said that, there are you’re right, there are components of the CPI that

we’re paying close attention to at the moment because we really just want to make sure we stick

the landing. Right. We don’t want to, have inflation popping back up. And, what we’ve been

focused on just recently, just looking at the data has been, housing, services. So that’s rents,

but also the cost of new dwelling construction, which is actually a mix of, of services and goods.

And we’re also, as you mentioned, paying, pretty close attention to market services and a couple

of reasons for that. One, as you said, it’s a pretty big chunk of the basket overall if you put

them all together. And also, two, it’s they one of the parts of the CPI that’s particularly

influenced by domestic factors. So that and that’s why obviously we’re having most impact

when we’re setting the cash rate. So, we’re looking at both of those two. But you know,

they have been coming down and that’s good. And that’s what we want to see. We just want to

make sure that that continues. And in the very latest monthly data, the last couple of months, we did

see some signs at some of those components that perhaps been a bit stronger than we were expecting.

And so that’s a watch point for us right now.

Evan Lucas

Yeah. So can I go back then to the housing data, particularly the rental data. So, the latest data

from Cotality and also from Prop Track is that rental is now running at about 4.1. And it’s

ticking up quite neatly in terms of that, you know, rental increase in pricing. How concerned are you

about that? But also, the fact that over the next two years, as your governor points out, very

clearly, micro pulling with the supply side, taking at least two years to actually hit the numbers,

does rent get slightly out of hand over the coming 24 months?

Sarah Hunter

Yeah. So, it’s a good question. It’s definitely, a watch area for us. So, we’re paying

very close attention to it. And so, we, what we were expecting was that we would see sort of rental

inflation pass, sort of soften a little bit further here. Not too much but really hold. And so, we

weren’t expecting rental inflation to be one of those categories that would be running below

2.5%. And that’s for those reasons I was talking about earlier on, in terms of that supply

response for housing and that taking time. Yeah. I mean, what the governor was really talking about

was it very basically, if you if you’re trying to build an apartment block as a developer, by

the time you’ve gone through the process of getting an approval, getting, you know, the building

construction work in place and you and your actual builder doing the work, I mean, it takes time to

build a big block of flats. And then getting up to the final, dwellings to market. That just takes

years, right? I think we can all empathise with that. So, she was really just making a comment about

that and the time it takes to get stuff done. So, we are watching it. I mean, we were expecting it to

take a bit of time, for dwelling investment to really pick up, but that’s in our forecasts

already that you can see. And so, we factor that in when we think about rents and things. And from

here it’s just a question of monitoring that, seeing what actually happens in terms of the

response and around dwelling construction and then what, what that flows through into the rental

market. But, yeah, all of these things are watch points for us. It would be, fantastic if we can see

a stronger housing supply response. I mean, as the governor said, most people want to see that most

people want to try and tackle affordability. But it does take a bit of time. We’ve been

expecting that. We’ve known that we’ve seen that before. So, we won’t be surprised if

we see it again this time round.

Evan Lucas

Other thing that’s also inside the inflation data, the, you know, is, is quite closely monitored

labour, you know, costs, certainly still, you know, about trend in terms of where they are. And yes,

also we’ve seen the unemployment start to tick up, but overall, historically and still pretty

tight in terms of where the employment market is. Do you see the wage growth scenario still more so

putting yourself at the top end of the band rather than the bottom end, with the way that the

employment market is playing out and the fact that, you know, you know, labour costs still remain

probably about historical trends as well.

Sarah Hunter

Yeah. It’s a really good question. We talk a lot about the labour market and what’s

happening in the labour market. And wages is obviously part of that. Because it’s a really,

it’s a really crucial key part of the economy, you know, pretty much everything that we,

consume, every good, every service that gets made in the economy, involves the use of people. So, you

know, jobs are everywhere. And so that’s why we, pay such close attention to the labour market.

Because it gives us a really good read on what’s happening across, across the whole

economy, across all regions, and sectors. And so, the big question for us, that relates to what

you’ve asked is what is full employment? And how close are we to full employment? We think that

the labour market is still a little bit tight. We can still see some pockets. It’s different in

different sectors, in different regions. So, I, I travel around the country, and I meet businesses as

part of our liaison program, and I meet our industry groups and what have you, when I go up to, say,

Queensland, or if I go, over to Adelaide, I get told there it’s still a pretty tight market for

construction. There’s a lot of work going on. And they’re still struggling a bit to get the

labour that they need, just as one example of where we think that the market’s a bit tight. If

you go to other parts of the country though, it does look a bit softer, a bit looser, particularly

down in Victoria. And actually, just you mentioned the unemployment rate. We can even see that in the

aggregate data that we track the unemployment rate in Victoria is a bit higher than it is in other

parts of the country. So, it’s always good to, cross, reference and check, the information that

you’re getting and see if it’s consistent. So really what we’re, we’re trying to

do at the moment still with policy, is get the economy to a point where we’re at full

employment. If we can get there, then, there’s, inflationary pressures that you talked about on

the cost side, what we expect to happen is that they will sort of return to normal. So, return to

what would be consistent with inflation at around 2.5% in aggregate. And we’re still just going

through the back end of that process. I said we’re pretty close. We hope. Touchwood. But

we’re not quite there yet. So, it is broadly about keeping us where we are today. But we’ve

just got to make sure we get the job finished. And, yeah, tracking those cost pressures is one of

those things. So, we just want to see them come off a little bit more, and then we’ll be even

more reassure them that, for at least in terms of the Covid, surge of inflation, perhaps we’re

definitely, definitely past it, but we think we’re getting close.

Evan Lucas

So, then the featured question comes into the last time that you and I met was in August with regards

to the last meeting, and you are talking now about what happens in November, the fact that we go from

the quarterly data into finally having monthly data has the full suite of the basket inside it. Take

us through first either work that you and your team have done over the last couple of years to get us

to that point, but also how the RBA is going to transition over probably an 18-to-24-month period,

using the monthly data as your core data, rather than sitting at the moment with them with the

quarterly figures you’re using.

Sarah Hunter

Yeah. Look, I thank you for the question. This is so exciting. I mean, this isn’t just once in a

lifetime. This is once ever. So, for the team that are working on this, I mean, this is a really

great thing for them to do, but lots for them to be doing as well. As you said, we have put a lot of

work in and with our abs colleagues, colleagues in Treasury and so on. And we’re very, very

grateful, particularly to our ABS colleagues, for making this happen. For us. It is a massive step

forward. It will be fantastic to get full monthly data. So, we get 12 rates a year, not four is

a year of what’s happening. But so, but as you said, there is going to be a bit of a transition.

So, what will happen? Come, the late November, it will be the first release for the October, the

month of October. So, it’s kind of what the ABS are going to put out at that point is, is you

said that full monthly release. So, we’ll get a full read of, what we call not seasonally

adjusted data. So, this is the data where they just tell you what the price level was in any given

month, and they don’t move through any of the regular seasonal events. So, Boxing Day sales, for

example, Black Friday is actually a better example. And a financial year that was a yeah put out.

Right? Yeah. Exactly. Through December is no longer like it used to be. And it’s really

interesting you say that because so with the not seasonally adjusted data, you can just sort of, sort

of pick it up and plug it in and there it is. But really what we want to do is smooth through those

sorts of things. I don’t really want to be, looking at a drop in prices because it’s Black

Friday and thinking that’s something that’s fundamental, real, right? It’s not.

It’s, you know, happens every year. And so, one of the challenges for the abs with the monthly

series is getting a complete picture of what those seasonal patterns are for everything that’s

in the CPI. So, some stuff yeah. You know, your televisions and whatever we know about Black Friday.

Other stuff though it’s a bit harder to get a handle on the seasonal patterns’ services.

For instance, you know, there are seasonal patterns in those series too, but they’re not quite,

as regular. They might shift around given the timing of school holidays and things like that. And so,

what the transition period is going to involve is the abs are going to keep on gathering the data,

and they’re going to learn what the seasonal pattern is for everything. They know some of the

seasonal patterns already. In fact, they know most, but not all of them. They’re going to learn

what those seasonal patterns are. And for us here at the bank, we’re going to be learning to do

with them, with everyone else. But just what we’re learning, we’re going to keep focusing

on and keep looking at that quarterly trend being series, because we know what the seasonal patterns

in that.

We’ve had that for a long, long time now. It’s very reliable. For us, it’s

the series that we use to give an indicator or a lead, if you like, on what’s happening, you’re

going to have to headline CPI. That’s why we focus on it. And just through that transition,

we’re going to keep looking at that quarterly series as well as taking in the new information from

the monthly. So, it’s only an improvement. We’re not going to ignore the new monthly

completely. Far, far from it. We’re going to make full use of it. And over time, we’ll get to a

point where, you know, the seasonal patterns. We’ll do job will understand it. Us here at the bank

and everyone else, and then we can make that final transition. But as you say, it is going to be, sort of

18 months and two years before the abs are ready to do that. And that’s why they’re going

to keep publishing that quarterly trim mean through to mid-2027 ish, at the very least. So, I’m

going to throw in a little bit of a different one for you there as well.

Evan Lucas

We talked about learning and about how you can start applying that using AI to help you with that

modelling.

Sarah Hunter

Yeah. Good question. And I should say like one of the absolute joys and pleasures of my job, is I

work with a team who are curious and are constantly wanting to learn. We want to improve our

understanding of the economy. It’s what means that we can do our job better. So, we’re

always looking at new ways, new techniques, new data sources. And we’re so lucky at the moment.

I think over my career, the amount of data that we have now compared to when I started, it’s

like night and day. It’s just fantastic. And as you say, tools like I, one of the things that we

can use to really dig into that data and assess it in a different way. And so, the short answer to

your question is we already use AI, actually, to help us with our analysis. So, people may know we

have a liaison program. We do about 900 or so interviews a year with, institutions, businesses,

not for profits. We were sort of writing down what people were saying, and we had qualitative

information, which was super useful, but it wasn’t really anything you can plug into a model.

Now we’ve got a large language model that we’ve developed internally, and we use it to

effectively extract information from those liaison notes that we have and turn them into quantitative

series. So, we have a range of different indices that tell us, what’s happening, how people feel

about their forward orders compared to activity today, what they expect to do to their prices in the

future compared, and so on and so on. And we are now starting to use some of those series in our

models. So, the short answer is yes. We will continue to do more of it, experiment with it and play

with it. But it’s already helping. So, I think it’s the kind of technology, if you can

figure out how to harness it, it will definitely, improve how you work.

Evan Lucas

So that’s my flow onto to the next pivot. So, we’re going to move slowly away from, from

inflation until we meet. Because the next one to this we will discuss which the RBA is clearly doing

a lot of research around is productivity. And I do want to read this statement that you had in your

first part of your statement on monetary policy. That really caught my attention when I saw this,

which was we’ve revised down aggregate demand in line with potential output. The assumptions

that trend productivity growth in the future has not changed, but our assessment of the current and

future balance between supply capacity and demand, and therefore inflationary pressure. This reflects

that assumption that businesses and consumers have already adjusted to a lower productivity growth

environment, and they expect lower growth in productivity, incomes and revenues to persist over the

forecast period. So, this is this question is what everybody is dividing by. We had an economic

roundtable around this, etc. we know that productivity in Australia is at a level that is a decade

lows, first and foremost. Can I get you to define how you look at productivity? Because I think the

word productivity is seen as do more with less. It’s not that, but also the fact that we are now

as your you know, your statement puts out there that unfortunately we are starting to accept low

productivity as Trend and how we can possibly break out of it. Yeah. No, it’s a great question.

And you’re absolutely right that the word productivity means different things to different

people.

Sarah Hunter

So, I’ll just going to yeah, we use a really, sort of technical macro economist definition here

at the bank, as you might expect. For us, productivity or productivity growth means that for the same

amount of inputs so that, that the workers in businesses, the capital that they might have

that’s everything from factories to laptops to infrastructure, everything else, you know, the

higher education, everything that you have that goes into making stuff, you’re able to make, a

little bit more for the same amount of inputs. So, I suppose my example from earlier is, is

that’s a really good one. By making use of AI technology, we’re now able to free up some

time for economists that used to be doing the manual processing themselves, and they can do other

work. So, and it’s and other higher value work as well. You know, manual processing of data is

pretty time intensive, and you don’t get much back from it.

It’s an analysis that you do with it that really counts. So that’s, that’s

for us at the bank. That’s what productivity growth looks like. But in in different organisations

it’s going to look different. It maybe is giving people, if you’re to run a factory, you, put

in the latest machinery and equipment in your space and that means that you can fit your same number of

workers. You can just increase the amount of products that you make or what have you. So that’s how

we define productivity and productivity growth, in terms of how we look at it, and why we look at it and

what kind of forecast horizon are we looking over? Yeah, we we’re observing the same data as

everybody else. And it’s. Yeah, you can see it in the statistics that productivity growth has slowed

generally in all countries over the last two decades or so. There is an exception, across advanced

economies, which is the US, and that is an exceptional performance there just recently. But setting them

to one side, generally most advanced economies have seen this. So, we’re not alone in this

experience. And it just means that those incremental improvements I was talking about, the pace of those

incremental improvements just slow down. We’ve been observing it. We thought that, particularly with

Covid, Covid was so disruptive, we weren’t quite sure what was happening to that underlying trend

for a little while. We’ve now got to a point where we think actually, some of what we thought might

be unwound and was related to Covid and Covid disruption, it actually looks like, it’s a bit more,

sticky, if you like, what’s a bit more structural? And that’s really, what we’re

reflecting in that productivity growth assumption downgrade. So, in a way, you can think of it as us

catching up with what has actually been happening on the ground. And the reason we’ve had to catch

up is because for a while, what we were seeing in the data was so noisy and messy with Covid, we just

weren’t quite sure, what was structural and what was, sort of related to that disruption that that

naturally went away. So, we’ve caught up, if you like, with, with what’s been happening. And

that’s why we don’t expect, there to be any fundamental changes in how people, make the

decisions that they make as a result of this. This is us catching up with everyone else, not everyone

else moving to us. So that’s why we’ve not really changed our view of the balance of demand and

supply in the economy right now as a result of this assumption. And why we’ve effectively just

passed it through into our GDP outlook going forward. So that those things have yes, the GDP growth

forecast has been downgraded, but the fundamentals in terms of inflation haven’t really changed. The

final point I make on this is that, just to stress, our forecast of rising is only a couple of years to

two and a half years. We run through to the end of 27 at the moment because that’s the horizon.

That monetary policy really has an impact on the economy. That’s why we focus. It’s really

quite short term, particularly in productivity world. So, productivity, if you do anything to change

productivity, I’m sure some of your listeners can empathise with this. If you install some new

machinery and equipment or you put some training into your workforce, you have to wait time for that to

really start to manifest. Same thing for any changes that government might make to regulations or other

policies. They just take time. So, we’re going to keep looking at this. We’ll come back and

we’ll talk about it again, over time as we move forward. But we’re not really saying anything

about the next ten years, 20 years, 30 years. We’re just really focused on that short term

horizon.

Evan Lucas

So, I’m going to get back to the I question that again. Is that the word you’re basically

using there is enhancement. Right. So, enhancing workforce by freeing up, you know, human capital to

do the more advanced information etc. Is AI that technology important that kind of start to free up,

not just the productivity that will take time, but the productivity will happen now because

that’s the argument it’s presenting to you guys at the board say that also being the case.

Sarah Hunter

Yeah. Well, I think the answer to that is potentially right way. I certainly don’t have any

crystal ball on this one. And I’m not an expert. So maybe, and that’s the thing, what

we’re all going to learn, I, I think if I look back through history and think about, generalist

technologies like this. So, I, as a technology you can imagine using in pretty much any job in any

sector, as opposed to an improvement, there might be quite sector specific, like a new medical device

or something like that, something to help me in my job. But, you know, great for the doctors using

it. But if you think about generalist technologies like this, the history shows you the previous sort

of ways of this kind of thing, if that’s electrification or if that’s, the, the

establishment of the, the factory production line, that happened in the late 1800s or early 1900s and

things like this. They take a long time to filter all the way through, because we’ve all got to

work out how to use them. And really, when we when I say work out how to use them, it’s not

usually the first version of using the technology that really gets you the advances. It’ll be,

the second and the third wave where we really figure out, oh, wow, it can really take on a lot of

tasks that, we previously had to do ourselves and that really frees up our time. So, I don’t

know is the answer. That’s the question. Right? We’re going to be monitoring it. I think

we’re all going to find out over the next, three, five, ten years and even beyond that, and, and

that’s, you know, watch this space and await and see. I think, you know, some, some tasks that

we do. I think most people can already see you could use AI to do them instead, and which is great,

but I’m interested in what tasks that we haven’t even tried to use AI for yet, and how

transformative it might be in those spaces

Evan Lucas

That careful pivots nicely to. The final thing is, it discusses growth, which is the Australian

economy is, you know, growing below historical trends, but certainly moving in the right direction.

There are signs, very small size, but there are signs that the pivot from public to private numbers

is starting to happen. What are your views for 2026 and 2027? Which is your two-year time frame? If

you forecast through with, you know, monetary policy still, in your view, slightly restricting that

as restrictive as it was, public fiscal policy is still quite open in terms. What’s the weak?

Wait, wait, is the starting price profile it for the next two years.

Sarah Hunter

Yeah. No, it’s a great question. Obviously, it’s something that we really focus on. So, I

suppose maybe a couple of points just to frame is one in terms of what do we think now is the, a

sustainable pace of growth for the economy or the pace of growth. We think the economy can, can,

could achieve without generating inflationary pressures. And this is over, you know, over that one

two-year horizon. Not in any given quarter. Things can be volatile from, month to month. Well, we

think that pace now is around about 2%. So, that’s that point 7%, productivity growth is, is one

chunk of that and the rest of it, around about, you know, 1.3 and 1.4% is what we think the

population growth is going to be. I should say, actually, we use, treasury sense for population

studies, population forecasts to, and our forecasts of that. That number really just comes from them,

and you bet more or less add the two together, roughly speaking, and you come up with around 2%. So

that’s what that number comes from. And that’s what we think the pace, is that we can say

sustain on an ongoing basis without generating inflationary pressures. And so, over the next, sort of

few quarters, we think the economy is sort of going to get to that pace there or thereabouts. And

then we think it’s going to stay there. If you look in the August S&P forecast, you’ll

see in the forecast table that there’s lots of low twos for GDP growth over the next couple of

years.

And that’s consistent with what I’ve just said. So, we think we’re going

to, you know, get back to full employment. We hope that we’re going to get inflation back in around

the middle of the band. And then we we’re trying to set policy to kind of keep it there and keep the

economy ticking over. If you look at that trend, pace of growth, in terms of the composition of demand,

you right. We’ve been watching for some time and expecting for some time that the private sector,

momentum would pick up a bit. We could see in the government budgets that the momentum on the government

spending side was going to soften. So, thinking about state government investment, it’s not that

it’s necessarily going to fall, but it’s just not going to keep growing as quickly as it has.

And so, we’ve been expecting that. Wait, as you said, we’re starting to see that. So, some of

the headwinds that households are facing, we think are easing, we know it’s still pretty tough for

some people. And we know the cost of living is still a challenge. Right? The prices are higher and

that’s uncomfortable. But the good news for households is that, on average wages are now growing

faster than inflation. So, people are getting real wage gains, which is obviously really helpful to see.

We still got some of the impacts of the tax cuts that were, fed through last year are still coming

through, as well and helping to support incomes. And we’ve still got, as you said, the end of the

labour market. We think it’s pretty close to full employment. So, more people working

proportionately than we’ve had in the past. And that’s really good for household income, too.

So, households we think are starting to lift their, their consumption. And that’s, helping to

support growth. And we do think that dwelling investment is also going to pick up. We talked about it

earlier. It does take time, but we know the start of the cycle isn’t today. It’s a bit earlier

in the piece. And so, we’re starting to see a bit of a pickup there. And, and we know that, cash

rate cuts, interest rate cuts, particularly, impactful in that, in that housing sector. So, there is that

transition going on. And we think there’s a bit more of that to run. But really, you know, in the

over the next sort of six months or so perhaps will be getting back to around about the pace of trend

growth. And what we’re trying to do is, is keep us there, because we also think we’ll be back

at that pace where, at a time where we ask around about full employment, which will be great, and we hope

that we’ll also have inflation around about the midpoint of the target band. And so, the trick for

policy now that that that the board, the decision that they’re making every time is what do we need

to do to the cash rate to keep that there, to make sure that we’ve got enough demand in the in the

system? If you like that we can keep up with supply, but we don’t want to overcook it. We don’t

want to have demand running too strong because that will generate inflation. Equally, we don’t want

to have demand running too weak because then we’ll undercook it and we’ll have inflation

falling through the target at the bottom of the target band. So, it’s that it’s a balancing act

I suppose. Now, and that’s the job.

Evan Lucas

So, there’s so much to unpack there. So first and foremost, I just want to go right back to what

you said around, you know, now accepting this sort of, you know, that that equilibrium point is 2%.

So, Australians have long believed that actually the equilibrium point in the 80s, 90s, early 2000 is

more two and a half to 3%. Do you think that a) we haven’t accepted that and B) can that also

explain why in the consumer confidence surveys, etc., that we remain pessimistic that low growth is

happening? We don’t believe it’s happening at a rate that it should be. We don’t feel

like we’re getting the kinds of returns that we probably once did in the previous decades. Does

that all filter into how you view that now is that we need to accept we’re not just a, you know,

a developed economy, but we’re actually a mature economy that can’t grow at the same rate

we used to. But also, that that pessimism we’re feeling is the transition away from a slightly

higher growth economy into a more middle of the road growth economy.

Sarah Hunter

Yes. It’s a really good question. I mean, you know, economies change. And as our at and evolve

all the time in every, every country in the world goes through this, Australia is not alone. And so,

you know, there is some sense of, this is our assessment right now. And we do think it’s a

slower pace than in the past. Maybe it doesn’t have to be in the future. Let’s see, as I

said, we’re really focused on that two-year horizon. So, you know, it doesn’t that this

isn’t us saying that this is it forevermore. But just, you know, at the moment, this is what we

think it is. And you’re right, it is a bit of, a slower pace of growth than we’ve seen in

the past, partly because population growth is a little bit slower than it was in particularly the 80s

and the 90s, and partly because productivity growth, is a bit slower than it was back then as well.

And so, you know, we put off you out there and yeah, let’s see what happens. I should also say

it is our assessment, but we are.