SEPTEMBER KEY FIGURES

	Jun Qtr 2008 to Sep Qtr 2008	Sep Qtr 2007 to Sep Qtr 2008
Weighted average of eight capital cities	% change	% change
Food	1.4	3.4
Alcohol and tobacco	1.4	5.8
Clothing and footwear	-0.7	0.0
Housing	2.6	6.8
Household contents and services	-0.9	0.9
Health	-0.2	5.1
Transportation	1.0	8.7
Communication	0.2	0.2
Recreation	1.3	1.6
Education	-0.5	4.7
Financial and insurance services	1.7	9.5
All groups	1.2	5.0
All groups excluding Housing and Financial and insurance services	0.7	3.8

All Groups, Quarterly change

Contribution to quarterly change, September quarter 2008

SEPTEMBER KEY POINTS


THE ALL GROUPS CPI

• rose 1.2% in the September quarter 2008, compared with a rise of 1.5% in the June quarter.
• rose 5.0% through the year to September quarter 2008. This is the largest annual change since December quarter 1995, excluding the period associated with the introduction of the GST.

OVERVIEW OF CPI MOVEMENTS

• The most significant price rises this quarter were for rents (+2.1%), water and sewerage (+12.3%), house purchase (+1.3%), automotive fuel (+2.0%), deposit and loan facilities (+1.9%), overseas holiday travel and accommodation (+4.9%), electricity (+4.6%) and property rates and charges (+6.1%).
• The most significant offsetting price decreases were for child care (-22.9%), pharmaceuticals (-3.9%), audio, visual and computing equipment (-3.9%) and motor vehicles (-0.7%).

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE (QUARTER)	Release Date
December 2008	28 January 2009
March 2009	22 April 2009
June 2009	22 July 2009
September 2009	28 October 2009

ROUNDING

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


CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

An article describing the treatment of child care services in the Australian Consumer Price Index can be found in the Appendix on page 36 of this issue.


ABBREVIATIONS

ABS Australian Bureau of Statistics

CPI Consumer Price Index

CCTR Child Care Tax Rebate


LINKS TO OTHER PARTS OF THIS RELEASE ON THE WEBSITE

To access the 'Main Contributors to Change' data (on the website) use the link ' Main Contributors to Change' as shown below.

To access the 'Capital Cities Comparison' data (on the website) 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 website 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 or Lee Taylor on Canberra (02) 6252 6251.