MARCH KEY FIGURES

	Dec Qtr 2008 to Mar Qtr 2009	Mar Qtr 2008 to Mar Qtr 2009
Weighted average of eight capital cities	% change	% change
Food	2.2	5.7
Alcohol and tobacco	1.0	5.7
Clothing and footwear	-0.5	2.1
Housing	0.9	5.5
Household contents and services	0.8	1.9
Health	4.4	5.3
Transportation	-1.5	-4.6
Communication	0.4	1.0
Recreation	-1.1	0.5
Education	5.4	5.0
Financial and insurance services	-6.3	-1.4
All groups	0.1	2.5
All groups excluding Housing and Financial and insurance services	0.8	2.1

All Groups, Quarterly change

Contribution to quarterly change, March quarter 2009

MARCH KEY POINTS


THE ALL GROUPS CPI

• rose 0.1% in the March quarter 2009, compared with a fall of 0.3% in the December quarter 2008.
• rose 2.5% through the year to March quarter 2009, compared to an annual rise of 3.7% to December quarter 2008.

OVERVIEW OF CPI MOVEMENTS

• The most significant price increases were pharmaceuticals (+13.0%), rents (+1.7%), secondary education fees (+7.6%), vegetables (+6.0%), and electricity (+3.6%).
• The most significant offsetting price falls this quarter were for deposit and loan facilities (-14.1%), automotive fuel (-8.1%), domestic holiday travel and accommodation (-5.1%) and overseas holiday travel and accommodation (-4.0%).

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE (QUARTER)	Release Date
June 2009	22 July 2009
September 2009	28 October 2009
December 2009	27 January 2010
March 2010	28 April 2010

ROUNDING

Any discrepancies between totals and sums of components in this publication are due to rounding.


LINKS TO OTHER PARTS OF THIS RELEASE ON THE WEBSITE

To access the 'Main Contributors to Change' data (on the website) use the link ' Main Contributors to Change' as shown below.

To access the 'Capital Cities Comparison' data (on the website) use the link 'Capital Cities Comparison' as shown below.

The standard way to access links to other parts of this or any release on the website is by selecting the required link from the links list in the box at the top left hand side of the 'Summary' page.

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Lee Taylor on Canberra (02) 6252 6251.