A "beautiful set of numbers" were the words used by former treasurer Paul Keating to describe the December 1989 national accounts. A few months later the economy slid into recession.

On Wednesday Joe Hockey used the words "a pleasing set of numbers". The numbers are much less pleasing than he is trying to suggest.

The Australian economy grew 0.5 per cent in the June quarter, a slightly better result than expected. But all of the growth (in fact much more than all) was accounted for by a 0.9 per cent jump in the stock of unsold goods.