*** VIEW: Further colour on Westpac's RBA.......>

RBA: *** VIEW: Further colour on Westpac's RBA call: "earlier this week Westpac

moved forward its f'cast for RBA cash rate cuts from the original f'cast of cuts

in Aug & Nov to June & Aug. The June cut remains almost certain; a 2nd in Aug is

our exp. & the Nov cut should also proceed. Therefore, Westpac is now f'casting

three cuts in '19 in June; Aug & Nov to push the cash rate from 1.5% to 0.75% &

to hold at that level through '20. Our f'casts for employment; wages growth;

econ growth; inflation & conditions in the housing mkt are consistent with the

need for policy to ease through the full course of '19, not to go on hold as

early as Aug. We see unemployment drifting up to 5.4% by year's end; econ growth

at 2.2% for '19; underlying inflation at 1.4%; & the housing mkt still weak

although approaching stability. An option which we considered was a move to some

form of Quantitative Easing (QE) should the RBA see the need to ease policy

further beyond the 1% level. However, consideration of the RBA's own research on

the deposit structure of major banks indicates that the RBA could be expected to

anticipate that the policy transmission mechanism will still have some effect at

a cash rate below 1%."