There is egg on some faces after this one. Just one of the 24 forecasters surveyed by Bloomberg ahead of Wednesday's inflation result expected anything as low as 0.2 per cent.
The central forecast was 0.4 per cent, and the highest, 0.8 per cent, enough to push up the annual inflation rate to 2.5 per cent, right in the middle of the Reserve Bank's 2 to 3 per cent target band.
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The highest forecast was from Stephen Koukoulas of Market Economics who says he expected a much bigger impact on fruit and vegetables from Cyclone Debbie and hadn't expected it to be offset by falls in the prices of seasonal fruits such as oranges, mandarins and apples.
His "bottoms up" forecast included higher numbers for services such as education and childcare, all of which did rise, but not by as much as expected, compounding a series of overestimates.
His forecast for the underlying measures of inflation was spot on at around 0.5 per cent, only a notch above the 0.4 per cent forecast made by Jo Horton and Janu Chan at St George Bank who were the only surveyed team to correctly pick the headline number of 0.2 per cent.
In their note to clients they said the low number "should not have come as a big surprise to the Reserve Bank".
"The bank is focusing on developments in the labour market. Wage growth remains subdued and the governor's speech indicated that there is a risk that wage growth will continue to be soft for some time. The bank will struggle to get price inflation back to the middle of its target band without an improvement in wage growth."
Each of the big four banks and AMP Capital picked headline inflation of 0.5 per cent or higher. Their forecasts for annual inflation were between 2.1 and 2.4 per cent.
![Stephen Koukoulas was thrown by fruit prices.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170728025452im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/1/3/j/4/z/b/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxjels.png/1501080345640.jpg)
"Today's data confirms that inflation remains subdued and will likely remain low for some time," said the St George economic team.
"Reserve Bank Governor Lowe provided some reasons for soft wage inflation in his speech but acknowledged there is no single answer. One of the key reasons was that many workers in the global economy today 'perceive' there is greater competition. They feel less secure about their jobs and, therefore, are reluctant to ask for higher wages.
![It looks like RBA governor Philip Lowe needs to find out what it's like in the real world beyond Martin Place.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170728025452im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/x/j/5/o/w/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxjels.png/1501117724949.jpg)
"This perception is being fuelled by greater globalisation and technology advancements. In turn, workers are adjusting down their future wage expectations and future household spending plans. The adjustment lower in household consumption presumably feeds into subdued inflation outcomes."
In his speech Governor Philip Lowe said preparations by other central banks to lift rates had "no automatic implications for monetary policy in Australia."
Today's data confirms that inflation remains subdued and will likely remain low for some time.
St George economists
Futures pricing after the speech and after the low inflation number had no possibility of a rate rise until November, and no fully-priced hike until September 2018.