The outlook for monetary policy boils down to a question which is easy to ask but difficult to answer.
And the minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia's July 2 monetary policy meeting, released on Tuesday, make it clear that the question is being asked.
Will the economy respond to lower interest rates quickly enough to offset the effect of the tapering of the mining investment boom?
If the answer is no, then the economy is in for a tough time.
The economy's growth rate, already "below trend", will slow and the resulting rise in the unemployment rate will be even greater than is already expected.
The RBA could avert this outcome, or at least soften the blow, by cutting interest rates further.
But, if the answer is yes, then further rate cuts would be unnecessary at best and possibly dangerous, sparking inflationary bushfires in the labour and asset markets.
Standard procedure for central banks in this sort of situation is to wait and see.
A rate cut can always be announced a month or two down the track with only a little time lost, but a premature cut is hard to take back - the stimulus has already begun to take effect and the reversal can be damaging to the bank's credibility.
So, the RBA decided two weeks ago to keep the cash rate steady as it gauges the effects of earlier rate decisions which, it said in the minutes, have "further to run".
But, as it's done consistently for nearly a year, it's left the way open for more rate cuts if those effects turn out to be too weak.
That option is the product of a good inflation outlook, despite the falls in the Australian dollar in the past few months.
"The depreciation was expected to add a little to inflation over time, but the forecast was for inflation to remain consistent with the (two to three per cent medium-term) target," the RBA said in the minutes.
The upshot is that the stance of policy remained "appropriate for the time being", but that the inflation outlook "could still provide some scope for further easing should that be required to support demand".
For economists charged with the task of RBA-watching, it will be business as usual - watching the data to see which of the waning of the mining investment boom and the eventual pickup in activity in the wider economy shows up to the party first.
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