Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the biggest jumps in the annual inflation rate were in the first quarter of 2022, rather than in the December quarter. Those increases pushed inflation for discretionary goods to 7.1 per cent in annual terms, much higher than the 5.5 per cent in the prior quarter. Fruit and vegetable prices rose 8.5 per cent in annual terms, however in quarterly terms prices were 7.3 per cent lower, reflecting a recovery from floods across Australia’s eastern coast during 2022. Those figures are more than double the RBA’s medium term inflation goal, which aims to target an inflation rate between 2 and 3 per cent. But BIS Oxford senior economist Sean Langcake said the December inflation figures were actually a “little softer” than the RBA had predicted.
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