DECEMBER KEY FIGURES

	Sep Qtr 2009 to Dec Qtr 2009	Dec Qtr 2008 to Dec Qtr 2009
Weighted average of eight capital cities	% change	% change
Food	1.4	1.9
Alcohol and tobacco	0.5	3.1
Clothing and footwear	0.2	2.1
Housing	0.8	5.5
Household contents and services	0.0	3.6
Health	-0.9	4.7
Transportation	-0.8	1.2
Communication	0.0	0.6
Recreation	1.5	1.1
Education	0.1	5.6
Financial and insurance services	0.7	-6.3
All groups	0.5	2.1
All groups excluding Housing and Financial and insurance services	0.4	2.3

All Groups, Quarterly change

Contribution to quarterly change, December Quarter 2009 - December Quarter 2009

DECEMBER KEY POINTS


THE ALL GROUPS CPI

• rose 0.5% in the December quarter 2009, compared with a rise of 1.0% in the September quarter 2009.
• rose 2.1% through the year to December quarter 2009, compared to an annual rise of 1.3% to September quarter 2009.

OVERVIEW OF CPI MOVEMENTS

• The most significant price rises this quarter were for fruit (+15.9%), domestic holiday travel and accommodation (+6.6%), house purchase (+1.0%), rents (+1.0%) and beer (+2.1%).
• The most significant offsetting price falls were automotive fuel (-2.8%), audio, visual and computing equipment (-7.1%) and pharmaceuticals (-5.3%).

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE (QUARTER)	Release Date
March 2010	28 April 2010
June 2010	28 July 2010
September 2010	27 October 2010
December 2010	25 January 2011

THE ABS INVITES COMMENT ON THE CPI REVIEW

The ABS is currently undertaking a major review of the CPI. The ABS is seeking feedback from users of the CPI to inform the review and to involve users in the evolution of the CPI. An information paper: Issues to be considered during the 16th Series Australian Consumer Price Index Review, December 2009 (cat.no. 6468.0) is available at www.abs.gov.au.

Organisations and individuals are invited to comment on any aspect of the CPI review by providing a written submission or participating in a public forum. Submissions should be sent to cpi.review@abs.gov.au. Submissions are due 12 March 2010. Public forums will also be held in each capital city during February and March 2010. Dates and venues for the public forums will be announced shortly in the press and at <https://www.abs.gov.au>.


ROUNDING

Any discrepancies between totals and sums of components in this publication are due to rounding.


LINKS TO OTHER PARTS OF THIS RELEASE ON THE WEBSITE

To access the 'Main Contributors to Change' data on the ABS website <https://www.abs.gov.au> use the link 'Main Contributors to Change' as shown below.

To access the 'Capital Cities Comparison' data on the ABS website <https://www.abs.gov.au> use the link 'Capital Cities Comparison' as shown below.

The standard way to access links to other parts of this or any release on the ABS website <https://www.abs.gov.au> is by selecting the required link from the links list in the box at the top left hand side of the 'Summary' page.

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.