Yesterday’s inflation data for May got hawks excited at the possibility of another interest rate rise. But we need to start reflecting on exactly what the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is measuring in the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
“The most significant contributors to the annual rise to May were housing (+5.2%), food and non-alcoholic beverages (+3.3%), transport (+4.9%), and alcohol and tobacco (+6.7%),” the ABS said.
That tobacco is still feeding into CPI despite just 10% of Australians still smoking would strike the British as somewhat peculiar — Britain’s Office for National Statistics’ core inflation measure excludes tobacco, along with energy, food and alcohol.
Crikey is committed to hosting lively discussions. Help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming. We aim to publish comments quickly in the interest of promoting robust conversation, but we’re a small team and we deploy filters to protect against legal risk. Occasionally your comment may be held up while we review, but we’re working as fast as we can to keep the conversation rolling.
The Crikey comment section is members-only content. Please subscribe to leave a comment.
The Crikey comment section is members-only content. Please login to leave a comment.