{"id":679703,"date":"2026-05-19T00:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T00:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/679703\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T00:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T00:45:13","slug":"australia-news-live-albanese-announces-jet-fuel-fertiliser-shipments-trump-says-planned-attacks-on-iran-called-off-who-sends-experts-to-the-congo-as-ebola-death-toll-reaches-110","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/679703\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia news LIVE: Albanese announces jet fuel, fertiliser shipments; Trump says planned attacks on Iran called off; WHO sends experts to the Congo as Ebola death toll reaches 110"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Businesses from the building sector to retail are likely to push up prices even further in the near term as the fallout from the war against Iran works its way through the country, the Reserve Bank\u2019s chief economist has warned.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah Hunter, speaking in Sydney this morning, said the surge in oil prices since the war began had been \u201cparticularly challenging to navigate\u201d given it had pushed up inflation at a time when the Australian economy was already dealing with cost pressures.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGiven these starting conditions, our research suggests pass-through will be faster and more extensive, and the risk of inflation expectations drifting higher is elevated,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sarah Hunter, chief economist and assistant governor at the RBA.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/d33e0f14ff796af14d0a890eba3762e4b11efef0.jpeg\"  class=\"sc-d34e428-1 ldCIuB\"\/>Sarah Hunter, chief economist and assistant governor at the RBA.Bloomberg<\/p>\n<p>The bank has lifted official interest rates at its past three meetings, pushing it to 4.35 per cent. Financial markets put the chance of a further rate rise next month at just 22 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>Hunter said the bank was already hearing from businesses about plans to lift their prices.<br \/>\u201cExpectations for pass-through to consumer prices vary, but we are hearing from some<br \/>firms that they plan to increase their retail prices,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor example, some construction firms \u2013 who have been relatively highly exposed to transport and oil-derived raw materials cost increases \u2013 are reviewing prices for new contracts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Businesses from the building sector to retail are likely to push up prices even further in the near&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-679703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}