CANBERRA, Oct. 29 (Xinhua/APP): Australia’s quarterly rate of inflation hit a two-year high in the three months to the end of September, according to official data released on Wednesday.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said that the consumer price index (CPI) rose by 1.3 percent in the third quarter of 2025, spanning from the start of July through the end of September.
Michelle Marquardt, head of prices statistics at the ABS, said it marked the highest quarterly CPI rise since the first quarter of 2023.
The CPI increased by 3.2 percent in the 12 months to the end of September, up from 2.1 percent in the year to the end of the preceding June quarter.
“This is the highest annual inflation rate since the June 2024 quarter when annual inflation was 3.8 percent,” Marquardt said.
The ABS identified a 9.0 percent rise in electricity costs during the September quarter as the biggest driver of inflation, attributing the rise to annual price reviews and the expiry of state government rebate schemes.
Annual trimmed mean inflation, a measure of underlying inflation preferred by the central bank the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), rose from 2.7 percent in the year to June to 3.0 percent in the 12 months to September.
The RBA said in forecasts released in August that it expected underlying inflation to remain stable around the mid-point of the 2-3 percent target range through the end of 2027.