Did the Reserve Bank's interest rate hikes put Australia's economy on a 'knife-edge'? A major consulting firm thinks so

Hundreds of thousands of Australian households are bleeding cash every month, according to a report by a major consulting firm. (Pexels: Mikhail Nilov)

A major consulting firm has criticised the Reserve Bank for increasing interest rates unnecessarily, pushing hundreds of thousands of household budgets deep into the red.

In the March edition of its Business Outlook report, Deloitte Access Economics partner Stephen Smith claims the two quarter-of-a-percentage-point interest rate hikes in February and March were "unnecessary" and leave Australia "facing the weakest rate of economic growth outside of the pandemic since the recession of the early 1990s".