Australian Inflation Eases Slightly to 3.8% but Remains High

The cost of most everyday items is up. Here's by how much. Good news: inflation has eased slightly. Bad news: it continues to remain stubbornly high. With annual inflation this week coming in at 3.8 per cent, it has cooled the prospect of an interest rate hike in August. But the figure is still higher than what the Reserve Bank of Australia and the federal government would like. Below, we've tracked exactly what's going on with prices, from rent and eggs to holidays and insurance. It's worth noting electricity sits first and foremost on the list. Its big, all-at-once jump is largely due to the removal of various government subsidies that had helped people cover soaring power costs mostly caused by the war in Ukraine. You'll also notice a decrease in the price of automotive fuel. Surging oil prices due to the Iran war prompted the federal government to cut the fuel excise. Sadly, for many, that's a discount which is set to expire on August 2. Use the controls to select different time periods and categories. About the data Data is from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), specifically the June 2026 Consumer Price Index release, retrieved via the ABS Data API. The ABC published a version of this article last quarter using data from the March release. The change over three months and one year is calculated from monthly CPI data. The monthly CPI series is relatively new and only available for all categories since April 2024, so the figures displayed when 'Since COVID' is selected use quarterly CPI data from the same June 2026 ABS release. In the category 'Other food products' n.e.c. stands for 'not elsewhere classified'. Credits