Monthly CPI Indicator in Australia

Measures the monthly and year-on-year change in Australian consumer prices, as a weighted average of the eight capital cities. It is the monthly inflation reading, complementing the quarterly CPI, and is published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

It is calculated from the prices of a basket of goods and services consumed by households, weighted by spending; the ABS CPI dataset yields the monthly (MoM) and year-on-year (YoY) percentage changes directly.

It is a key reference for RBA monetary policy, which targets 2-3% inflation. Upside or downside surprises move rate expectations and the Australian dollar, with the advantage of a more frequent read than the quarterly CPI.

It is more volatile than the quarterly CPI, since not all categories are repriced each month, so it is worth also watching the quarterly figure and the trimmed mean for underlying inflation.