CPI
The state of the economy plays a critical role in forming voter preferences. Earlier this week the ABS released its Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) statistics for the September quarter 2008. Inflation is one of the key variables in the Sawford formula, which is used by some psephologists to predict election outcomes.
The Producer Price Inflation (PPI) statistics for the September quarter, also released by the ABS this week, were the highest since the series commenced in 1998. The PPI at the final stage of production jumped by 2.0 per cent in the September quarter for an annual rate of 5.6 per cent. The PPI is used by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to monitor upstream inflationary pressures. These PPI figures suggest the CPI figures for the December quarter will also be high.
Statistics on the Australian economy can be sourced easily from the RBA’s statistics page.