INQUIRIES
For further information about these and related statistics, contact Steve Whennan on Canberra (02) 6252 6251 or the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.
INTRODUCTION
This publication contains average prices for selected items which are included in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the eight capital cities.
The CPI covers a wide range of goods and services arranged in eleven groups which are in turn divided into subgroups. The items for which average prices are shown in this publication comprise a selection of items from the CPI food group and the following non-food subgroups: household supplies; sport and other recreation; private motoring; alcoholic drinks; and personal care.
AVERAGE PRICES
Prices shown are the geometric means of prices for specified grades, qualities, brands, etc. charged by a number of selected retailers in each city. The items and the retailers have been selected as representative to measure price change over time rather than to measure the average prices of all retail sales of these items in each of the 8 capital cities. Therefore they should be regarded as no more than approximate indicators of price levels for the items concerned. Furthermore, the selected grades, brands, package size, etc. for some items differ between cities and may also differ from one period to the next due to changes in product specifications. For example, potatoes may be priced as washed or brushed, loose or bagged, depending on what is most representative for a particular city. Thus the average prices for some items may not be completely comparable from city to city, nor from quarter to quarter.
Changes in the price levels of the items in this publication may differ from those in Consumer Price Index, Australia (cat. no. 6401.0) because those indexes are adjusted to take account of changes in the quality of the items priced; no such adjustment is made to the price levels presented in this publication. Details of differences in specifications are provided in footnotes to the table.
Each month prices are collected at regular intervals for milk, butter, bread, fresh meat, fresh fruit and vegetables, margarine, petrol and alcohol and are averaged to obtain quarterly prices. Prices for all other items included in this publication are collected during the mid month of each quarter (i.e. in August, November, February and May).
RELATED PUBLICATIONS
Users may also wish to refer to the following publications:
Current publications and other products released by the ABS are listed in the Catalogue of Publications and Products (cat. no. 1101.0). The Catalogue is available from any ABS office or this site. The ABS also issues a daily Release Advice on the web site which details products to be released in the week ahead.
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