If its latest monetary policy statement had been the answer to a multiple choice question on the outlook for interest rates, the Reserve Bank would simply have ticked “c) Don’t know”.

What is clear, though, is that the central bank is in no hurry to make a move.

The key unknown for the domestic economy is how the tussle between two opposing forces – the decline in mining investment and the pickup in activity in non-mining sectors – is spurred by the RBA’s stimulatory monetary policy.

“The timing and strength of these remain subject to considerable uncertainty,” the RBA said in its Statement on Monetary Policy released on Friday.

But there’s plenty of time to wait and see how things turn out, with no evidence that the RBA is worried about a surge in inflation.

The main driving force behind inflation is wages, which are in turn driven by the strength of the labour market, which itself responds with a delay to economic growth.

The RBA included detailed analysis of this in its statement.

But wages growth is not an issue for the inflation-wary central bank right now.

“While there have been signs of improvement in the labour market in recent months, a fair degree of spare capacity remains,” it said.

“Over the next couple of years, growth in activity is expected to pick up gradually but it is likely to be some time before unemployment declines consistently.”

As a result, the RBA said, cost pressure from within the Australian economy should be well contained.

That will offset what’s expected to be further import price rises still to flow through from the Australian dollar’s fall over the past year or so.

Accordingly, consumer price inflation should stay in line with the two to three per cent target range over through the forecast period, which extends out to the middle of 2016, the RBA said.

And it’s clear that any real risks to this inflation outlook are not expected by the RBA to emerge for a while.

“The outlook is uncertain but as currently assessed suggests that a degree of spare capacity will be present for much of the forecast period,” the RBA said.

For central bankers, the most important form of “spare capacity” is unemployment.

So when the RBA concludes, as it does in the statement, that the current setting of interest rates will be sustained “for some time yet”, it is probably pointing to a period of many months, possibly well into next year, before it starts to jack the cash rate up.