Australia Q1 CPI Preview

Underlying inflation to have remained moderate

Australia’s Q1 CPI will be released on 30 April and will be a key input to RBA Board deliberations on 19-20 May. Labour force data for March/April, and Q1 wage price index and retail trade data will also be at hand for the Board. Possibly most important will be some clarity on US tariffs set to be announced in early April.

The February monthly CPI - see here for our analysis - provided important inputs to sharpen up our nowcast for Q1 headline and trimmed mean CPI inflation.

Bounce-back in headline inflation

Our bottom-up analysis points to a +0.8% q/q and +2.3% y/y outcome for Q1 headline inflation (and nearly +0.9% q/q in seasonally adjusted terms).

This would follow consecutive +0.2% q/q outcomes which were significantly dampened by government rebates (mainly energy bill relief) and lower petrol prices.

Administered prices are expected to have contributed significantly to Q1 headline inflation, with large price rises for electricity (waning rebate effect), education (annual price rises) and health (reduction in the proportion of consumers who qualify for subsidies at the start of the year).