The skyrocketing prices of vegetables and petrol have made headlines over the past few months, with rising prices driving big increases in the cost of living in Australia.
However, these aren’t the only goods and services where there have been large price increases. And despite the overall large rise in inflation, there are some things which are now cheaper than they used to be.
The change in inflation is also not uniform across Australia, with Australian Bureau of Statistics data showing that some capital cities are experiencing fewer price rises than others.
We’ve brought together all the data that goes into Australia’s headline inflation figures, broken down into the most detailed goods and services categories available. This uses the most recent figures , which are for the March 2022 quarter.
This data explorer shows the change in the price index, which is the cost of the item converted to 100 in a given base year, with each other year’s price calculated by taking the price as a percentage of the base year, then using this percentage to get that year’s index.
For example, something that originally cost $3 in the base year, but now costs $3.5 would show an index changing from 100 to 116. This makes the change in price comparable across different items and services.
It also shows percentage change in price, which compares the price for a given quarter to the quarter one year previous.
Outside of large increases in vegetable prices and record prices for fuel, supply chain disruptions and fuel costs have caused price increases for various goods and services across the country:
Meat
Beef and lamb in particular have increased sharply in price year-on-year, with beef up 12.1% nationally and lamb up 7%, which the ABS report says is due to “herd rebuilding in response to favourable weather conditions”, supply chain disruptions and increased transport costs.
Coffee, tea and cocoa
Bad news for caffeine enthusiasts – the price of coffee, tea and cocoa increased by 7.4% nationally over the past year. The price rise has been particularly large for Perth, where it has increased by 12.6%.
Housing
A number of housing goods and services have seen large increases, with increases in building supplies and labour causing the price of building to increase in turn. Rent has increased sharply in cities outside of Sydney and Melbourne, with the largest increases in Darwin (11.3%) and Perth (9.7%). However Sydney and Melbourne both had small decreases in the cost of renting over the same period, with declines of -1.2% and -0.9% respectively.
The price of gas (and other household fuels) increased significantly in Hobart (18.1%) and Melbourne (12.5%), but decreased in Adelaide (-1%) and Canberra (-6%).
Education
Fees for tertiary education increased year-on-year, with the ABS saying the price rises are due to university fee changes made by the Coalition government under its “job-ready graduate” program.
Cars
Car prices, parts and maintenance have all had recent increases, with motor vehicles rising 6.6% year-on-year. Again, the price increases are due to supply chain disruptions and increased demand. The cost of maintenance and repair for cars was up 4.7%, and the cost of spare parts and accessories was up 4.4%.
Not everything has gone up in price, however; here are some things that have gotten cheaper:
Wine
While there was no change nationally, some capital cities saw year-on-year prices for wine decrease, with small declines in Darwin (-3.4%), Hobart (-2.9%) and Adelaide (-1.7%). The price index for wine has generally been quite flat, with only small increases and decreases over the past ten years.
Clothing
Footwear and garments have decreased in price across the board, with the cost of clothing generally decreasing over the past ten years.
International holiday travel and accommodation
The cost of international travel dropped dramatically year-on-year (-11.3%), but this is in part due to a fall from the higher-than-normal costs in 2021.
Fruit
While fruit increased in price overall in some capital cities, the cost actually decreased for others, down -7.5% in Perth and -3.9% in Hobart.
