According to official minutes, the board of the Australian Reserve Bank did not contemplate raising the cash rate at its most recent meeting.

At the two-day meeting last month, it was generally anticipated that interest rates would remain unchanged at 4.35 percent for the fifth consecutive month.

Even while a halt was also generally expected at the time, the board did address the case for another interest rate hike at its February meeting.

However, the minutes of the March talks, which were made public on Tuesday, did not include any such discussion.

A rate drop for the first time since hikes started nearly two years ago was also not discussed.

The March minutes were characterized as "the most dovish piece of communication from the board since the RBA launched its tightening cycle in May 2022" by Gareth Aird, head of Australian economics at Commonwealth Bank.

He stated that although it was "too early for the board to change to an easing bias," "the board behind closed doors will consider the likely next move in the cash rate as down."

Rate cuts will start in September, according to the CBA, and there will be three more this year and three more in 2025.

Nevertheless, the minutes were made public on the same day that statistics revealed a steady increase in Australian home prices. For the fourteenth consecutive month, CoreLogic reported that real estate prices increased by 0.6% in March.

As it considers future interest rate choices, the RBA is likely to be particularly concerned about sustained property price growth because any rate reduction is likely to spur additional increases.

RBA board members emphasized in the minutes issued on Tuesday that the most recent economic data was largely as anticipated and had not "materially affected" their forecast.

According to the minutes, "they chose to highlight that the statistics showed the economy was tracking roughly as anticipated and that, notwithstanding the substantial uncertainties, the risks appeared to be fairly balanced."

Additionally, as previously stated in the post-meeting statement, the board reaffirmed its flexible position on future interest rate changes.

"Therefore, it was not possible to rule in or out further modifications in the cash rate objective," the members stated.

As "productivity growth did not expand sustainably or if services price inflation proved stickier than predicted," members did analyze threats to the forecast, such as if inflation remained high.

However, consumers might continue to exercise caution and run the danger of a more severe economic slump than anticipated.

The minutes stated that "if consumers do not respond as expected, perhaps due to a weakness in the labor market, the recovery in real household disposable income growth may not raise consumption growth."

Because the incoming data had not shown that upside risks to inflation had materialized and because output growth had slowed as anticipated, members believed that overall, the relative probability of these two groups of risks had become somewhat more equal.