Year-ended inflation is currently 3.9% (to June 2026) · SOURCE RBA - see the live inflation rate page and the RBA cash rate.
Annual CPI table as published 30-Apr-2026; extended after each quarterly ABS CPI release.
What this comparison measures
This compares two points on the annual average Consumer Price Index, sourced from the RBA’s G1 statistical table with underlying data from ABS catalogue 6401.0. It assumes a national basket, weighted by what Australian households collectively spend, updated annually. The Reserve Bank states the limit plainly: the CPI “does not take into account the differences in spending patterns between individual households”, and notes that cars carry a weight of almost 3 per cent in the basket while not every household owns one.
It also assumes the acquisitions approach, used since the September quarter of 1998. That includes the purchase price of a new dwelling and excludes mortgage interest. The ABS Selected Living Cost Indexes do the reverse, on an outlays basis, which is why they diverge from the CPI exactly when interest rates move. And it assumes annual averages, which smooths the effect of which month within a year is chosen.
A worked example. Suppose the index stands at 100 in the earlier year and 130 in the later one. The calculation multiplies by 1.30, so 1,000 dollars becomes 1,300 dollars. That is a correct statement about the basket: those goods and services, in the proportions households collectively buy them, cost 30 per cent more.
The conclusion to draw is that it answers what money bought, not what any household spent. Where your own spending is concentrated in a category that moved faster than the average, your experienced inflation was higher than the figure shown. One property worth knowing: headline CPI is not revised after publication, so a comparison between two past years is stable and will return the same ratio in five years. Only comparisons ending at the present move, and they move because a period was added.
Longer read: What a comparison in real dollars can and cannot tell you. Converting an old amount into today's money looks like a single multiplication. Underneath it are two decisions by the statistician: how quality change is stripped out of prices, and how a re-weighted index is joined to the one before it.
What a real dollars comparison can and cannot carry, including quality change and chain linking, is covered in what a comparison in real dollars can and cannot tell you.