"Today's decision to leave interest rates unchanged is a comfort to business and households, but the inflation genie is proving increasingly difficult to get back in the bottle," Innes Willox, Chief Executive of the national employer association Australian Industry Group, said today.
"The decision was clearly on a knife-edge and with inflation now set to be higher and longer than expected in May, the bank has now adopted a stronger tone about doing whatever it takes to tackle it.
"With the domestic economy barely growing and market sentiment taking a tumble, there is a clear risk that a further rate rise now would precipitate a recession with potentially severe consequences for jobs, households and businesses.
"It seems that we are in a holding pattern with higher than target range inflation and interest rates to be with us for potentially significantly longer than earlier thought," Mr Willox said.
