Australia's Monthly CPI Takes Over as RBA's New Benchmark
July CPI data due Wednesday is the first monthly print carrying full weight as Australia's primary inflation measure, after the ABS retired the quarterly series. The RBA's August decision will be the first to rely solely on the new series.
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The July monthly CPI print due Wednesday is the first to carry full weight as Australia's primary inflation measure, after the Australian Bureau of Statistics retired the quarterly series late last year.
Australia's shift to a monthly Consumer Price Index marks the most significant change to the country's price statistics in decades, ending the quarterly release's century-long role as the headline benchmark for monetary policy.
The transition traces back to September 2022, when the ABS introduced a monthly CPI indicator to give policymakers and markets an earlier read on inflation between quarterly releases. That early indicator drew on existing data collection methods and updated prices for roughly two thirds of the CPI basket each month, using data the ABS was already gathering for the quarterly series. At the time, the ABS and the Reserve Bank both flagged that the quarterly CPI would likely remain the principal measure for the foreseeable future, given large parts of the basket, particularly consumer durables and many administered prices, were only priced once a quarter.
That changed as the ABS invested in broader monthly price collection. From April 2024, the Bureau began gathering monthly data across a much wider range of goods and services, alongside new data sources such as supermarket scanner data and a substantially expanded rental dataset covering around 480,000 properties compiled monthly rather than via quarterly agent surveys. These improvements allowed the ABS to build a genuinely comprehensive monthly series rather than the partial-coverage indicator that had existed since 2022.
The final quarterly CPI release as Australia's primary inflation measure came in October 2025, alongside the last publication of the interim monthly indicator. The complete Monthly CPI then launched on 26 November 2025, covering the October 2025 reference month, formally replacing the quarterly series as the benchmark for the Reserve Bank's inflation target. The RBA welcomed the change, noting the new series would offer more timely and complete information on consumer prices, even if monthly readings prove more volatile than the smoother quarterly figures they replaced.
The move also brought Australia into line with international practice, aligning it with every other G20 economy in publishing inflation data monthly rather than quarterly. For traders and analysts, the transition means the CPI print now scheduled for the fourth Wednesday of most months, alongside forecasts and market positioning, carries the weight previously reserved for the quarterly release, while the underlying trimmed mean measure remains the RBA's preferred gauge of inflation once volatile items are excluded.
Today's July print is the first under the new regime where markets will treat a monthly miss or beat with the same seriousness as a quarterly surprise. The RBA's August policy decision, due next week, will be the first to rely solely on the monthly series for its post-meeting statement on the inflation outlook.
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