Australia’s CPI Spikes to Highest Since 2008 on Covid Jolt

(Bloomberg) -- Australia’s inflation surged last quarter, joining developed-world counterparts in spiking from 2020’s lockdown-induced weakness, though a renewed Covid outbreak is set to damp pressures ahead.

Inflation accelerated to 3.8% in the three months through June from a year earlier, the fastest pace since 2008, the statistics bureau said Wednesday. But highlighting the impact of factors like free childcare that fueled the gain, the key core measure that strips out volatility only climbed an annual 1.6%.

“With demand crunched by lockdowns and a slower recovery expected into 2022 on account of more modest fiscal support, there’s little in the inflation reading or the outlook for the economy to shift the central bank’s sanguine outlook for prices and policy,” said James McIntyre at Bloomberg Economics. “We expect subdued wages growth to damp underlying inflation pressure.”

The yield on 10-year Australian government notes fell 4 basis points to 1.16%, with the move mostly in response to souring global risk sentiment.

The Reserve Bank expects inflation to dissipate as price indexes lose the boost from the comparison with the depths of the pandemic last year, underscoring why it’s running record-low interest rates and bond-buying programs. Australia could be headed for a renewed bout of price weakness with Greater Sydney struggling to contain a delta variant coronavirus outbreak.

“The annual CPI movement was significantly influenced by Covid-19 related price changes from this time last year,” Michelle Marquardt, head of Prices Statistics at the bureau, said in a statement. “Key drivers included the full unwinding of the Federal Government’s free childcare package” and “a full return from the drop in fuel prices,” she said.

Other details in the report include:

• The most significant rises in the second quarter were automotive fuel, up 6.5%, and medical and hospital services, up 2.4% due to the annual increase in private health insurance premiums
• Domestic holiday travel and accommodation fell 1.3% due to lower airfare prices. Increased competition and the government’s tourism package, which included subsidized airfares to selected destinations, drove the decline

The report showed both quarterly core measures of inflation advancing 0.5% in the second quarter from three months earlier, in line with forecasts.

Like many other central banks around the world including the Federal Reserve, the RBA has said above-target inflation readings will be a temporary phenomenon rather that an escalating problem it needs to nip in the bud. RBA chief Philip Lowe and his colleagues expect the attention to return to stoking inflation once the transitory phase passes.

Earlier this month Lowe announced a slight paring back in bond buying to reflect the strength of the economy. However, the sharp deterioration in the Covid situation since then is prompting some economists to predict he will defer that taper at next week’s meeting. Many now expect the economy will contract this quarter.

Lowe has struggled to return inflation to the 2-3% target during his almost five years at the helm and had been hoping the crisis might tighten the labor market to spark wage-push inflation. The current round of lockdowns is likely to set that back as jobs are lost from firms forced to shutter.

“With underlying inflation remaining subdued – the trimmed mean was only 0.1% above the RBA’s forecast for the year to the June quarter – and the ever extending NSW lockdown set to depress September quarter GDP and adding to uncertainty, the RBA is likely to be very dovish at its meeting next week,” said Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital Investors Ltd. in Sydney.

(Updates with comments from economists.)

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