It wasn’t such a shock that after successive rate rises from the Reserve Bank (followed by bank home-loan rate rises) and an awful lot of knee-jerk media reporting, that consumer confidence fell last month.

That’s exactly what the Reserve Bank would have been looking for and probably had that factored into one of its many models.

Westpac today said that the survey it does with the Melbourne Institute of Consumer Sentiment fell by 2.5 to 118.3 in November, from 121.4 in October.

The index had risen in October by 1.7.

The fall was in contrast to the rise last week in the Roy Morgan poll (which, however, was done the weekend before the Melbourne Cup rate rise. It is due to be updated tomorrow).

It also followed the fall in the ANZ job ads series on Monday (which some attributed to the rate rise that month), but there was no sign of any impact higher rates had on the “remarkable” level of business confidence, or the sharp improvement (and widespread, it must be said) in business conditions in the NAB’s October monthly report.

In a statement this morning, Westpac chief economist Bill Evans said consumer sentiment was still strong.

“Given that this fall comes after a second consecutive increase in the Reserve Bank’s overnight cash rate and associated increases in variable mortgage rates it has to be classified as a modest response,” Evans said.

“The level of the index is still 38.3% above its level from a year ago.” Something also supported by the Morgan weekly survey.

He said the average index reading of 119.7 over the past three months was only exceeded during four previous periods of strong optimism since the survey began in 1975.

The index has fallen 0.8% over all since the Reserve Bank of Australia began lifting interest rates in October, Evans said.

The survey reported that consumers were also more pessimistic about economic conditions over the next year, with the component index slipping 2.5% to 128.1, from 131.4 in October.

The survey of 1200 people aged over 18 was conducted between November 2-8. The RBA lifted rates on November 3, at the start of the survey, so the news would have been to the forefront of public discussion early on.

And confidence manifests itself in different ways, not just interest rates.

In the midst of the toughest 12 months Australia has had financially since 2001, more new Australians were born in the 2009 financial year than in any previous year.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported this morning that  296,600 births were registered in 2008, surpassing the previous record years of 2007 (285,200 births) and 1971 (276,400).

Given that we went through the global financial crisis, which intensified from September 2008 onwards and then the recession, which rolled up to our shores/beaches, then retreated, the figures from the ABS are quite astounding.

While we were busily worrying about the crunch, the slump, jobs, more couples had the time to get “close and personal”. Was it that we became a nation of stop-at-homes? Did unemployment, or underemployment as working hours were cut, leave couples with more times on their hands and a desire to fill it in an age old way?

The bureau said that Tasmania had “the highest fertility rate, with 2.24 babies per woman, slightly higher than the Northern Territory (2.22), while the Australian Capital Territory had the lowest at 1.76.

“Women in Tasmania and the Northern Territory were also having their children at younger ages; fertility rates were highest for women aged 25-29 years, for the rest of Australia it was highest for women aged 30-34 years.

“Overall, Australia had a total fertility rate of 1.97 babies per woman, up from 1.92 in 2007 and the highest since 1977 (2.01). Nearly half (43%) of all births in 2008 were to first time mothers, while a third (33%) were having their second child.”

With this sort of explosion in births, and high levels of immigration, its no wonder the Australian population is now growing faster than it has done year decades.

The ABS in late September reported that in the year to March Australia’s population increased by 2.1%.

“The last time Australia saw higher growth rates was in the 1950s and 1960s as a result of postwar migration and high birth rates. These rates compare with a 1.2% growth rate recorded five years ago.”