In today’s podcast, NAB Group Chief Economist Alan Oster discusses the following:

• Metropolitan Melbourne (and Mitchell Shire) entered stage three restrictions today for a period of six weeks in response to surging coronavirus infections. At this stage we don’t expect this to deal a huge blow to national GDP figures but clearly it will be a major challenge for Melbourne, particularly businesses which only just reopened after the last lockdown.
• Today we released our fortnightly consumption data and our residential property survey. Retail is now essentially back to normal although hospitality and admin services remain below year-ago levels. The residential property survey offers little good news.
• We will release our next monthly business survey on Tuesday next week, followed by our latest Australian forecasts on Wednesday.

Listen to the full podcast now.