Yielding nothing to the RBA’s critics and leaning hard on the thinking behind 2020’s unapologetic monetary policy activism, Guy Debelle, the Reserve Bank’s deputy governor, exuded positivity in a speech for economists yesterday.

“Lower borrowing rates will encourage businesses and households to borrow, invest and spend when they are confident about their future prospects,” Debelle told an Australian Business Economists Webinar.

“This package of monetary stimulus is complementing the significant fiscal stimulus,” Debelle instructed, sharing worries (which are low) that the Morrison government’s fiscal stimulus will be denuded, minimised or withdrawn too soon.

“It has boosted the cash flow of households and businesses, as the effect of lower borrowing rates has more than offset the impact of lower deposit rates,” Debelle chuffed.

Debelle pulled his punches yesterday, leaving for a later speech his denunciation of the Australian banking industry: ‘complete and abject failures’ he will label them, adding, ‘the lot of them’.

Nary one red cent has been lent out under the Coronavirus SME Guarantee scheme, that’s the way the numbers work. Unbelievable and unacceptable and for now the sanction of statutory management all round is on the backburner.

“When businesses become more confident about future prospects, the low cost of borrowing will support their decision to invest,” Debelle told the economics forum.

Yeah, right.

All around Melbourne and most of all around Banking Day HQ (think the Hurstbridge line) decisions to invest are all about property, construction, in-fill and higher density.

I dunno about the data but my sense of things is that commercial property has hung in there.

The mixed-use complex pictured today is where the fine, modernist National Mutual headquarters used to be, later used by Suncorp. The end result, the new build, snugs right into this precinct of Collins Street. I applaud it.

This is the number one city of the South by any measure and all set to boom. If there’s one place in Australia you want to get ahead in the property game, it’s all Melbourne.