Price collection

8.1 The ABS obtains prices for the Australian CPI through several modes of collection including: 

• Manual collection including online and via the phone
• Administrative data collection including scanner and transactions data
• Web-scraping

8.2 Manual price collection is completed by trained and experienced ABS staff who monitor market developments such as changes in market shares or quality of the items being priced. This information is used in maintaining the representativeness of the samples and assessing quality change. 

8.3 Online pricing represents a cost-effective mode of collection with low respondent burden. Online price collection provides the ABS with prices listed online, which frequently match prices in store. Prices are also collected online where this is the predominant method consumers use to purchase a particular good or service, for example, domestic and international airfares. 

8.4 In some instances, the ABS uses web scrapers to collect online prices. Web scraping is a technique employed to extract large amounts of data from websites. Prices can be collected as frequently as desired for all products using purpose-built programs that scan the websites of retailers, find the relevant information and store it in a time series format. The process can be run automatically. Data collected via web scraping represents a 500-fold increase in the number of prices collected compared with manual price collection, providing an opportunity to significantly increase the sample of products and prices collected. For further information on the use of web scraping please refer to ABS use of web scraping.

8.5 The ABS utilises transactions data as a method of obtaining prices for use in the CPI. Transactions data is high in volume and contains detailed information about individual transactions including date of purchase, quantities purchased, product descriptions, and value of products purchased. In the case of retail outlets, transactions data are often obtained by ‘scanning’ the barcodes for individual products at electronic points of sale.

8.6 Transactions data reduces collection costs and enhances the accuracy of the CPI by enabling products to be weighted by their economic importance, and increasing the frequency of price observations and the number of products priced. For further information on the use of transactions data in the CPI, refer to Chapter 15. Use of transactions data in the Australian CPI.

8.7 The ABS does not use list prices or recommended retail prices without confirming that these are the actual prices paid by consumers. Special and discounted prices are taken into consideration when these are widely available to the consumer. The ABS considers whether the items are of a quality identical to that in the item specifications (e.g. the items are not damaged or superseded stock) and are available in quantities sufficient for consumers to purchase on the pricing date (i.e. supplies are not limited to so-called early-bird shoppers, or purchases subject to some other restriction).

8.8 Although special and discounted retail prices are readily observable for most items, it is not necessarily so for large and expensive durables. Take project homes as an example. The prices of project homes may not be advertised widely and may be disguised with promotional or bonus offers included in the price. In these cases, substantial effort, including discussions with senior sales staff, is made to ensure that full particulars of the transactional prices are obtained, i.e. to ensure that the underlying price of the home is separated from any bonus offers.

8.9 Where prices are set centrally and do not vary by location, the prices are collected in one city only and used across multiple cities. This is known as national pricing and reduces collection costs through the re-use of prices across cities where appropriate. Postage charges (e.g. stamps) are a good example of national pricing. 

8.10 Sometimes it is not possible to collect the price of an item in a particular period. This can be caused by various circumstances, most commonly the item being out of stock in the outlet sampled. Paragraphs 4.66 - 4.69 in this manual describe several ways of dealing with temporarily missing price observations. The procedure most commonly used in the Australian CPI is to impute a movement for the missing item based on the price movements of the other items in the sample. The implicit assumption behind this procedure is that if it had been possible to collect the price of this item, its price would have changed in line with similar items. Mostly this is a reasonable assumption and will provide an acceptable outcome for the index. However, this method is inappropriate when a product has no close substitutes. In these cases, a more appropriate method of imputation is to repeat the previous price.

8.11 Editing commences during price collection. The software used to collect prices has functions designed to help ABS staff edit the information as it is being collected. Examples of these edit checks are:

• immediate calculation of the percentage change in price for the item
• a function for storing annotations about the price, such as any promotional information from the retailer’s website.
• a function for entering an edit symbol that describes the change in price. The edit symbol must be consistent with the price movement. For example, if a price fall for an item occurs because it is on special, the edit symbol accompanying the recording of the price will identify that this is the reason for the price fall
• the ability to update the item descriptions if they have changed.

Quality adjustment during price collection

8.12 ABS staff can apply quality adjustments and enter all the necessary information during price collection. If ABS staff find that they do not have all the information needed to apply a quality adjustment, then the record is annotated and resolved later by price index analysts.

8.13 The collected prices undergo further checking by the CPI staff responsible for compiling the index. Where prices are found to be unusual (for instance, where movements are not considered representative) or not within expectations (i.e. inconsistent with knowledge gained from other sources), they are generally referred back to the staff member who collected the price for verification.

8.14 Investigations are conducted to enable quality adjustments to be performed on records identified as having quality changes which were not immediately quantifiable during price collection.

8.15 The weighting pattern for the Australian CPI is based on the acquisitions concept (see Chapter 2. Purposes and uses of consumer price indexes) and so for consistency the pricing of goods and services is also based on this conceptual approach. Mostly the acquisition of a good or service occurs at the same time as the payment and so any price movements are recorded then. There are some goods and services where payment for, and acquisition of, the good or service do not coincide. In these cases, prices are recorded at the time that the good or service is acquired, and not when the payment is made. Examples of where this can happen include the following:

• Goods and services invoiced periodically after consumption (such as electricity, telecommunications, and home-delivered newspapers). Price movements are introduced into the index calculation from the date at which the price change is effective. Providers are therefore approached for price information regularly to obtain current charges and dates of effect for planned price changes.
• Goods and services paid for with loans (for instance, motor vehicles). For index purposes, the price recorded is the full transactional price of the product at the time of acquiring it. The method and timing of payment are irrelevant under an acquisitions approach.
• Goods and services regularly paid for in advance (for instance, airfares, club memberships and magazine subscriptions). For index calculation purposes the price is included when the good or service is acquired (e.g. date of the flight for airline travel, or the commencement date for a magazine subscription) and not the date on which the payment is made. However, prices are collected at the time payment would normally be made. For example, a ticket for domestic airline travel is typically paid for about a month before the departure date. Therefore, prices are collected in June for a domestic flight travelling in July, and it is that price which is used in the July CPI.

8.16 Although the CPI is published monthly, the frequency of price collection varies. 87% of the CPI by weight is collected on a monthly basis. In some cases prices are collected on a daily or weekly basis where data is available. Examples include supermarket scanner data for grocery items and automotive fuel. A few items are priced only once a year, either because that is the known frequency at which prices are reviewed (e.g. council property rates) or because of seasonal availability (e.g. football matches). Items priced less frequently than monthly are shown in Table 8.1. The general approach is to price each item as frequently as is necessary to ensure that reliable measures of monthly price change can be calculated.

8.17 The remaining sections will describe in more detail the price collection methodology used in each of the eleven CPI groups. A brief description is provided of the group’s index structure, the items priced, the frequency of collection and the types of outlets from which the prices are collected. Collection issues specific to each group are also highlighted.

8.18 This group includes expenditure on food and non-alcoholic beverages purchased for human consumption (pet food, for example, is included in the Recreation and culture group). The Food and non-alcoholic beverages group accounted for 16.1% of expenditure in the 17th series CPI weighting pattern, introduced in the December quarter 2017. Table 8.2 shows the structure of the Food and non-alcoholic beverages group, examples of the items priced and data sources.

Price collection

8.19 The majority of prices in this group are derived from transactions (scanner) data. For further information refer to Chapter 15. Use of transactions data in the Australian CPI. Prices for non-transactions data items are collected monthly.

Areas requiring special pricing procedures

Fruit and vegetables

8.20 Most fresh fruit and vegetables are priced throughout the year. Seasonal items, such as peaches, plums, grapes, mandarins and mangoes, are not available in all months of the year. One benefit of multilateral methods for compiling price indexes for seasonal goods is that price comparisons are made across many reference periods. The CPI uses a multilateral method with a window span of 25 months, allowing strongly seasonal items to contribute to the overall price index by matching items with temporary gaps in sales.

Meals out and take away foods

8.21 Restaurant meals are priced at a variety of restaurant types with different levels of service and food styles. Entrees, main meals and desserts are priced separately, and to ensure adequate coverage, main meals based on several types of meat and vegetarian dishes and a variety of entrees and desserts are priced.

8.22 Sometimes the distinction between an eat-in restaurant meal and a take away meal can be blurred. For example, some take away food establishments provide tables on their premises for customers to consume their food, despite their main business being a take away food outlet. A general rule used to distinguish between restaurant and take away meals is that table service is provided with restaurant meals. Where table service is not provided with meals consumed at the tables provided by an establishment, purchases will be treated as take away meals in the CPI.

Quality adjustments

8.23 Quality adjustments are frequently required for items priced within the Food and non-alcoholic beverages group. Food items sold in packages (e.g. breakfast cereals) often undergo changes in package size, . To ensure that these items are priced to constant quality, the collected prices are adjusted to remove the effects of these size changes.

8.24 Products in the Food and non-alcoholic beverages group are also subject to regular market innovations; for example, new ingredients added to a food product, or a new formula used for an established food item. In these cases, it is sometimes difficult to decide whether to treat the innovation as a quality adjustment to an existing product, or to assume that a new product has been put on the market. Generally, the choice of treatment will depend on analysis based on sales and market information and close monitoring of the modified products for an extended period.

8.25 The CPI compares the price movements of the same item from the same outlet each period. New brands or changes in consumer preferences towards generic brands are not treated as price change, although multilateral methods will account for changes in market share through product weights 

8.26 Assessing the quality change in restaurant meals and take away foods can be very difficult as there is no reliable indicator of changes in the quality of the meals. Prices of meals tend to remain the same between one pricing period and another, but side salads and vegetables may be adjusted to meet seasonal availability, or the weight of cuts of meat in the meals may be varied because of price changes in the meat industry. ABS staff will note any changes of this nature where possible and will attach comments to the prices to highlight these situations so that quality adjustments can be made if considered necessary.

8.27 Another quality issue with restaurant meals and take away foods is the treatment of so-called meal deals. Although these are frequently the most popular product sold, the items in the meal deal are priced separately because identifying the quality change for the meal deal as a whole can often be difficult. For example, the items within the meal deal can be varied or the meal deal can be cancelled entirely and these changes would present problems in calculating price movements based on the constant quality concept. Many of these meal deals are promotions used to launch products and so new meal deals are only included in the list of items to be priced when they have a proven sales record or when they are the only option available to customers.

8.28 The Alcohol and tobacco group includes expenditure on all types of beverages containing alcohol such as beer, wine and spirits; and products containing tobacco such as cigarettes, cigars and cigarette tobacco. The Alcohol and tobacco group accounted for 7.1% of expenditure in the 17th series CPI weighting pattern, introduced in the December quarter 2017.

8.29 Table 8.3 shows the structure of the Alcohol and tobacco group, examples of items priced and the data sources.

Price collection

Areas requiring special pricing procedures

Alcoholic beverages

8.30 Alcoholic beverages are often sold on special where large discounts are offered on a few products for a short time only. Prices of alcoholic beverages are also affected by seasonal events, such as the Christmas holiday period and the running of the Melbourne Cup. Web scraping of major retailers is utilised to ensure these short-term price fluctuations are captured.

8.31 The alcoholic beverages priced are selected according to geographical market share and purchasing patterns of the consumers. For example, Australian consumers' preferences for particular brands of beer vary from city to city, and even within each city. Representative brands and items are selected for pricing based on an analysis of their local market shares. ABS staff monitor market reports and seek advice from local retailers to determine which brands and items are most frequently purchased by consumers in the local area.

Tobacco

8.32 Tobacco prices and brand market shares are obtained from supermarket transactions data. As explained in Chapter 5. Coverage and Classifications, only prices for legally sold tobacco are collected, with illicit tobacco prices excluded from the CPI.

Excise duty on alcohol and tobacco

8.33 In accordance with the indexation provisions of the Excise Tariff Act 1921 and the Customs Tariff Act 1987, the rates of customs and excise duties on spirits and beer products are applied twice yearly and are based on movements of the CPI. The new rates take effect from 1 February and 1 August each year. Wine is taxed based on the Wine Equalisation Tax, which is currently a tax of 29% of the wholesale value of wine.

8.34 For tobacco, excise increases take effect from 1 March and 1 September each year, based on the ABS rate of average weekly ordinary time earnings (AWOTE). A temporary additional increase in the tobacco excise of 5.0% commenced on 1 September 2023 for 3 years. Any price change caused by the change in the rate of customs or excise duty is collected as part of the general price movement of alcoholic and tobacco products.

Quality adjustment

Alcoholic beverages

8.35 Prices of alcoholic beverages are adjusted where necessary to ensure that price comparisons are on a constant quality basis. Producers of beer and spirits will sometimes make no changes to the prices of their products, but will make specification changes that will affect the quality of these products. Examples of these changes include changing the alcoholic content or making changes to the volume. Quality adjustments taking into account these specification changes ensure that the concept of pricing to constant quality is maintained. However, no quality adjustment is made to wine for changes in its alcoholic content as this depends on the fermentation process and the climate during the growing season.

8.36 The Clothing and footwear group includes expenditure on clothing, footwear, accessories such as watches and jewellery, and services such as dry cleaning and shoe repair services. The Clothing and footwear group accounted for 3.6% of expenditure in the 17th series CPI weighting pattern, introduced in the December quarter 2017.

8.37 Table 8.4 shows the structure of the Clothing and footwear group, examples of items priced and data sources.

Price collection

Garments

8.38 The prices of most items of clothing are collected online, either manually or via web scraping.  Prices observed during clearance sales are ignored unless the product concerned is available in sufficient quantities for all prospective customers on the day.

8.39 Much of women’s seasonal clothing depends on fashion, which changes significantly from season to season. The individual specifications have been defined to enable ABS staff to identify the correct type of garment each period. Any quality variations of the new season's stock are assessed as part of the monthly price analysis. Price statisticians endeavour to quantify any changes to the utility of the garment and adjust as necessary. New seasonal garments from the same outlet that match the product specification (e.g. women's T-shirt, generic brand, 100% cotton) but contain fashion changes are treated as directly comparable to the previous product as the overall utility of the garment is unchanged.

Footwear

8.40 The range of footwear priced includes business shoes, casual and fashion footwear, school shoes and sports shoes. Prices are collected monthly from specialist footwear retailers and from large department stores and sports stores with footwear sections.

Accessories and clothing services

8.41 Accessories comprise personal effects such as jewellery, watches (excluding smart watches, which are priced under Telecommunication equipment and services), wallets, suitcases and backpacks. Examples of items classified under clothing services are dry cleaning and shoe repairs. Prices of items in this sub-group are collected monthly by ABS staff from retail outlets such as jewellers, department stores and clothing repairers.

'Special' prices

8.42 Sale or special prices for items of clothing are acceptable for the CPI provided

• the item is not being discontinued
• a full size and colour range is available
• the special price requires no reciprocal commitment from the customer (e.g. to make a bulk purchase)
• the promotional price applies for the full day.

8.43 Specials on clothing and footwear may be offered because the item is being discontinued. In these cases, where there is only a limited range of the product available at the sale price, the drop in price is ignored as it is not considered representative of genuine price changes. Specials are closely monitored to see whether discounts are available across the range of products or are limited to certain items only. Major sales events, such as end of financial year and Black Friday sales, typically see heavily discounted prices across a wide range of clothing and footwear. These prices are captured in the CPI and can have a significant impact on the price index.   

Seasonal items

8.44 A significant proportion of clothing items are seasonal. As a result, each month there are many prices that need to be imputed for out-of-season items. Prices for these out-of-season items are moved in line with changes observed in prices of similar items that are available.

Sample selection and maintenance

8.45 Clothing respondents are largely selected and weighted using a top-down approach. The initial phase of this process is to identify and weight market niches for the different ranges of clothing. Outlets such as retail chains and store franchises are then chosen to represent those niches based on their market shares. This approach allows the ABS to maintain a stable structure of retail clothing stores. However, the clothing specifications are under continual review as many of these products have short life cycles.

Quality adjustment

8.46 Quality adjustments are very difficult as there are frequent changes in fashion, fabrics, makes and brands. The principal difficulty faced by the ABS is the high frequency of stock turnover for fashion garments and the potential difficulty assessing each instance of possible quality change. Moreover, because changes in garments are so frequent, retailers are likely to time price changes (particularly price increases) to coincide with the introduction of a new range. This retailing practice is problematic from a CPI perspective because specification changes often appear significant enough to require detailed assessment to measure price change on a constant quality basis. However, genuine quality changes (i.e. not those that are purely cosmetic) are typically marginal and less than the price changes that occur at the same time (usually because of discounting of garments that are about to be superseded). So, although prices for garments tend to move around abruptly and unevenly, the genuine quality changes that often impact these price changes tend to be insignificant. If a new item matches the same specification (e.g. women's fashion top, same brand and from the same outlet) then no quality adjustment is applied. If there is a major change in the quality of clothing priced in the CPI observed by ABS staff, quality adjustments are required.

8.47 The Housing group includes expenditure on rents, utilities, purchase of new dwellings (excluding land) and other expenditures on shelter-related goods and services. The Housing group accounted for 22.7% of expenditure in the 17th series CPI weighting pattern, introduced in the December quarter 2017.

8.48 Table 8.5 shows the structure of the Housing group, examples of items priced and the data sources.

Price collection

Rents

8.49 This sub-group covers payments made by households as rent for both privately owned and government provided dwellings. Rental payments for holiday homes are excluded as these are classified under Domestic holiday travel and accommodation in the Recreation and culture group. An administrative dataset containing prices for a sample of approximately 500,000 rented dwellings within each capital city is obtained each month, with the sample stratified according to location, dwelling type and size of dwelling based on the most recent Census of Population and Housing.

8.50 The administrative dataset of privately owned rental dwellings is updated monthly and includes information about rental properties in both capital cities and regional areas. The dataset contains several variables of interest, including weekly rent, property characteristics such as type (apartment, townhouse or house), and street name or postcode. This dataset is used to produce the CPI rents series across all capital cities using a matched sample approach. New properties are added to the CPI sample every three months, and properties are removed from the sample if the remain vacant for three months. 

8.51 Government rents charged to pensioners and other welfare recipients are set as a proportion of income. As these incomes are known, rents for government-owned properties are derived from information provided by the state and territory housing authorities, and price movements can be readily estimated. Occasionally, the proportion used to set rents for government provided dwellings changes. Again this is public knowledge and is readily available for use in estimating price movements.

Utilities

8.52 Electricity, gas and other household fuels and water and sewerage charges are collected monthly.  These charges are obtained from energy providers, administrative data and local councils, and both concession and standard rates are priced. Current charges are applied to estimates of annual consumption of electricity, gas and water to derive the annual payment in the current month's prices. Supply charges, which are the fixed fee for being connected to a network, and usage charges, which are the variable costs that depend on the amount consumed, are included as part of the price of the utility service. 

New dwelling purchase by owner-occupiers

8.53 Pricing of detached house purchases is limited to transactions in newly constructed owner-occupied houses. Project home builders are approached to obtain prices for specified types and models of project homes, and information about promotional offers. The types of project homes selected are those most commonly constructed in each capital city. For marketing purposes, many builders provide promotional offers which can include upgrades to fittings, extra features, or even extra rooms.  

8.54 From the March quarter 2017, the CPI includes the measurement of price change for attached dwelling purchase by owner-occupiers. For apartments, the method used is the component cost approach plus the change in the margin faced by the consumer. The component cost approach is based on the principle that the price change for a product is determined by the price change of the components (or inputs) that are used in the production of the product. In this case a quarterly movement for each capital city is sourced from the Producer Price Indexes, Australia output series Other residential building construction. As the data is only received in the third month of each quarter, an model is used to estimate the monthly price change for the first two months of the quarter. For the measurement of price change of semi-detached dwellings, such as townhouses, this is sourced from the existing CPI series for detached houses, as their price change more closely resembles that of detached houses rather than large scale apartment construction projects. For more information on these changes, see the feature article Measuring Price Change of Attached Dwellings in the CPI, Dec 2016.

8.55 Extensions and renovations are conceptually part of this expenditure class, but no prices specifically relating to these activities are collected as their prices are assumed to move similarly to those of new houses. However, expenditure on extensions and renovations is included in the weight for this expenditure class.

Other housing

8.56 Property rates and charges are normally set using a rating year and so are only priced annually. Examples of items priced are general rates, garbage charges and council levies. Where concessional and standard rates exist, both rates are priced. Governments and councils occasionally impose levies on customers of these services as a means of raising money for some possibly unrelated services such as ambulance services. As these levies are considered an inescapable cost of obtaining the original service they are in scope.

8.57 Prices for house repairs and maintenance work performed by tradespeople are not collected as prices for complete tasks. Rather, price movements for materials are obtained by pricing various materials used in house repair and maintenance, and the labour component is estimated using data from Wage Price Index, Australia.

Subsidies

8.58 Some classes of home buyers (e.g. first home buyers) may be eligible for government subsidies directly related to the house purchase. Adjustments are made to the prices collected to reflect the differing transactional prices paid by different types of home buyers.

8.59 Subsidies received by households on rents and utilities are included in the CPI. Therefore, any increase or decrease in subsidies or concession rates will be shown as a price change.

8.60 Social security recipients who rent privately owned dwellings can claim Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA). The average payment of recipients is based on the average movements of privately owned rents and applied across the capitals. The amount of assistance received is determined according to each family’s circumstances and the amount of rent they pay above a threshold. As CRA is a subsidy directly related to the rents of privately owned dwellings, it is in scope of the CPI. In accordance with the indexation provisions of the Social Security Act 1991, rental thresholds and maximum assistance rates are updated on the 20th March and September each year in line with movements in the CPI. Price movements in rents paid by households receiving CRA will reflect the timing of these updates. During other periods of the year, the price movements for those households receiving CRA will broadly align with price changes for private rents.

Quality

8.61 Conceptually, when a change in the quality of a rented dwelling occurs (e.g. a capital improvement - such as a new garage - is made to the dwelling) a price adjustment will be required to account for the quality change. The use of a matched sample and stratification (by dwelling type and size) alleviates the need for broad based, manual quality adjustment as it ensures prices changes are not attributed to changes in quality of the house. Collecting information on quality changes for government-owned rented dwellings has not been feasible because the improvement in quality is usually not directly reflected in the rental charges. In practice, the effect of the quality change is deemed to be minor and no quality adjustments are applied to government-owned rented dwellings.

8.62 Significant maintenance tasks on rented dwellings (for instance, the laying of new carpet) are normally carried out infrequently. Hence the rental increases to recover these costs occur irregularly rather than continuously. Since the work was carried out to return the dwelling to its original standard and, given that no quality adjustments are made to take account of the deterioration of the dwelling, some large increases in rents are accepted without any quality adjustment.

8.63 Quality adjustment of house purchases involves accurately representing the utility to consumers of promotional offers. For example, a project home that has $10,000 worth of upgrades offered for free versus $10,000 worth of upgrades offered for an extra $3,000 will immediately have a different take up rate by consumers. Full acceptance of the first offer is likely and less for the second. Also, what is being offered as a bonus needs to be taken into account. If the bonus item is an upgrade of a necessary inclusion for a new home then it is determined if the bonus is of genuine utility to the customer. Where an item is identified as a genuine bonus, the advertised value of the item is reduced to the market value and removed from the project home value.

8.64 Utilities prices are calculated based on the change in total cost for a fixed amount of consumption in each period. No quality adjustments are generally applied, but any change in average household consumption is excluded from price change.

8.65 The Furnishings, household equipment and services group covers expenditure on all goods and services used in the operation and regular use of dwellings; plus personal goods and services, including those delivered outside the home. The Furnishings, household equipment and services group accounted for 9.4% of the expenditure in the 17th series CPI weighting pattern, introduced in the December quarter 2017.

8.66 Table 8.6 shows the structure of the Furnishings, household equipment and services group, examples of items priced and the data sources.

Price collection

8.67 Products covered by this group are priced monthly. Large products (such as lounge suites, beds and refrigerators) are normally offered with an extra charge for home delivery. For CPI purposes, these delivery fees are included in the price of the article as for most consumers they are an inescapable cost of purchasing these items.

8.68 Household services are often charged by the hour. This is not an appropriate pricing measure for CPI purposes, as it makes no allowance for improvements in the efficiency of service provision. Respondents are requested to provide prices for completed jobs to overcome this problem. The chosen task is re-priced for the same type of client every month. Prices for both casual and permanent clients are obtained.

8.69 Prices obtained for child care services are derived from administrative data. The price of child care in the CPI is equal to the gross fee payable by parents, less the amount of Child Care Subsidy (CCS) that they receive (see “Subsidies” below for further information) . These Child care indexes were previously based on a sample-based collection of fees and modelled estimates of subsidies. From October 2025, anonymised CCS administrative data supplied by Services Australia are used to measure changes to prices paid by households using centre-based day care. These data are used to produce monthly indexes starting from April 2024. Child care centres are allowed 28 days to report attendance to Services Australia, resulting in a one-month lag in the child care indexes (e.g.,CCS data from the April 2024 month is used to produce the May 2024 index).

Subsidies

8.70 From 2 July 2018, the Child Care Benefit (CCB) and the Child Care Rebate (CCR) was replaced by the Child Care Subsidy (CCS). Parents with children in approved care may be eligible to claim the CCS and reduce their out-of-pocket expenses. The CCS data supplied by Services Australia includes the subsidies families receive for child care services and this is deducted from the gross fees charged, in order to calculate the price of child care services paid by households. Changes to the child care subsidy have had a significant impact on the child care index over the years, as shown in figure 8.1.

Quality adjustment

8.71 Furniture presents a problem in pricing to constant quality as, for example, the quality of construction may change, but may not be noticeable from a casual inspection. Fashion also plays a large part in new models without modifying the practical utility of the product to the consumer. Without a change in utility, changes in fashion do not result in prices being adjusted for quality changes.

8.72 Products such as cleaning agents often have their formulas changed and as a result their prices change. If the change to formulas is driven by legislation (e.g. changes to poisons laws to improve child safety) then no adjustment to prices for quality is made. Similarly, if the change to the product is for the benefit of the community (e.g. introduction of biodegradable cleaning agents) then no adjustment for quality is made. Quality adjustment is only made where there is a demonstrated change in the efficiency of the product to perform the service for which it is purchased.

8.73 Services, including those provided to households, are hard to price to a constant quality. To meet CPI requirements, respondents are asked to select a property and to provide a costing for the provision of a completed job for a popular service to that property. This overcomes problems with simple measures such as hourly rates (where, for example, more experienced people can perform a given task more quickly).

8.74 Hairdressing and personal grooming services are difficult to adjust for changes in quality. For example, trying to assess the change in the quality of a haircut is very subjective. As a result, quality adjustments are rarely applied to personal care services.

8.75 Changes in the quality of child care are also difficult to assess because of the subjective nature of measuring effects such as changes in experienced staff and changes in the carer to child ratio. Therefore, no quality adjustments are made for these changes.

8.76 The Health group includes all expenditure relating to health goods and services. The Health group accounted for 5.4% of expenditure in the 17th series CPI weighting pattern, introduced in the December quarter 2017.

8.77 Table 8.7 shows the structure of the Health group, examples of items priced and the data sources.

Price practices

8.78 The majority of items covered by this group are priced monthly. The exception is health insurance prices, which fall under Medical and hospital services and are collected annually. Gross prices are recorded for services not subsidised; e.g. physiotherapy, chiropractic and. hospital services. The prices collected for subsidised services such as hospital and medical services, optical services and purchases of medicines under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) are recorded as net prices (i.e. gross prices less any subsidies). Dental services are priced as advertised by the dental practice. Pharmaceutical products not specified under the PBS are priced using their actual (gross) prices as displayed in the store. Purchase of corrective eyewear including contact lenses and spectacles are recorded at full retail prices.

8.79 Health insurance is included in the Health group because it relates to health services and medical service costs can be readily substituted with health insurance costs. Conceptually, the cost of the insurance service charge should be recorded with other non-life insurances within the Insurance and financial services group. However, this is not practicable due to difficulties in estimating the insurance service charge component of the observed price (i.e. gross insurance premium less any claims). Refer to the Insurance and financial services group for more information.

Areas requiring special pricing procedures

8.80 Under the PBS, consumers pay a standard, subsidised price for medicines until they reach a specified level of expenditure (the safety net threshold) during a calendar year. Once this limit is reached, all further purchases of medicines are at a greatly reduced price. Some groups of consumers eligible for concessional prices (e.g. age pensioners) are required to satisfy much smaller safety net provisions and are entitled to pay a concessional price until the safety net is exceeded, at which point PBS medicines are free. Therefore, concessional prices are part of the price sample and are used in index estimation. Price information for prescribed medicines covered by the PBS is obtained from Services Australia. The prices are weighted according to the progressive number of drug prescriptions sold at the reduced prices during the twelve months of the year. As a greater proportion of the population exceeds the PBS safety net through the year, the ratio of reduced prices to standard prices increases, leading to a distinct seasonal pattern in price movements for PBS drugs.

8.81 Medical services subject to subsidies under the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) are measured using administrative data from Services Australia. The sample of services measured in the CPI includes those deemed as representative of the reference population. Data are obtained monthly and includes pricing data for services provided, bulk billing and rebate information for each service. Medicare rebates are reviewed annually with the new rebates introduced on 1 November of each year. Net prices are calculated by the ABS accounting for all subsidies and safety net rebates.

Subsidies

8.82 Some health services are subsidised under the Medicare rebate scheme, and these subsidies are factored in during the pricing of health care services for the CPI. Data relating to the amount of subsidies for health services are obtained monthly to enable the subsidised prices to be calculated.

Adjusting for quality

8.83 The quality of many health care goods and services is constantly improving, and these improvements should be taken into account during pricing to maintain the concept of pricing to constant quality. Where possible, the price collected is for a health service rather than an hourly rate to account for some quality change. Unfortunately, identifying and quantifying quality change in health care services is often quite difficult in practice, so the prices collected for health care services are normally not adjusted for changes in quality unless the change is significant, and there are reasonable means of quantifying the quality change.

8.84 The Transport group includes all expenses related to owning and operating private motor vehicles and travel by public transport within the capital cities. It does not cover public transport used for intercity travel: this is covered in the Recreation and culture group. The Transport group accounted for 10.3% of expenditure in the 17th series CPI weighting pattern, introduced in the December quarter 2017.

8.85 Table 8.8 shows the structure of the Transport group, examples of items priced and the data sources.

Price collection

8.86 Prices for all goods and services in the Transport group are collected monthly.

8.92 Cars included in the price sample cover a broad selection of makes and models. All taxes and levies on the purchase of a car, other than vehicle registration and compulsory third party insurance, are added to the price of the motor vehicle as they are inescapable costs of purchasing the vehicle. Registration is included in the Other motoring charges expenditure class and comprehensive and compulsory third party insurance are included in the Insurance expenditure class in the Insurance and financial services group.

8.87 Automotive fuel prices are obtained from administrative data of advertised prices in each capital city. Prices from outlets across all areas of each capital city are obtained each day, including weekends and public holidays. Prices are recorded for a range of automotive fuel types. The following article has more details on automotive fuel in the CPI Automotive fuel in the CPI | Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Areas requiring special pricing procedures

8.88 Prices for motor vehicles are collected via telephone and online. Actual transaction prices are obtained over the phone, while drive away prices are collected online. ABS staff conduct market research and correspond with motor vehicle dealerships to obtain discounting and other market intelligence to supplement online prices. Discounting includes cash discounts through price negotiations, or bonuses such as free or heavily discounted upgrades. 

8.89 To price public transport, fares for a sample of representative journeys are collected, as opposed to prices of various ticket types or zones which may undergo changes in quality. A mix of ticket types (e.g. single, periodical, concessional and multi trip tickets) is then used to price these journeys.

Quality adjustment

8.90 Whenever any specification change is made to a vehicle that affects its motoring performance, economy, comfort, safety, or durability, an adjustment should be made to the car’s reported price. In practice, these quality adjustments are made at the time that new models are released.

8.91 Quality adjustments for motor vehicles are based on consumer utility and measures are derived from a variety of sources, including:

• Industry conducted market research to determine consumers’ perceived values for new accessories or improved feature
• Price lists for options which may in future be offered as standard accessories.

8.92 Consistency of adjustment practices is maintained across vehicles and over time, but allowance is made for changing community perceptions of utility.

8.93 To determine the value of promotional offers and quality adjustments, the ABS uses a variation of the Delphi method. This method accommodates the broad range of utility values that occur within the household consumer population. Once a dollar value is determined, the amount is applied to the price of the new vehicle. For promotional offers, the price in the current period is adjusted downward while the promotion is offered. For quality adjustments, the price of the previous model is usually adjusted upwards. In both cases, the difference between the two prices is reduced as a result of the adjustments.

8.94 No adjustments are made to prices for public transport for changes in the quality of the service, such as improved or degraded timetables, better seating, or the addition of air conditioning to public buses.

8.95 The Communication group covers all expenditure on postal services and telecommunication equipment and services. The Communication group accounted for 2.7% of expenditure in the 17th series CPI weighting pattern, introduced in the December quarter 2017.

8.96 Table 8.9 shows the structure of the Communication group, examples of items priced and the data sources.

Price collection

8.97 Prices for postal services are collected monthly They cover a range of postal charges including those for standard letters, parcels in the most common sizes, and international mail. The prices are collected centrally as the charges apply nationally.

8.98 Prices for telecommunication equipment such as mobile phone handsets are collected monthly from retailers selling these devices.

8.99 Prices for telecommunication services are collected centrally as prices do not normally vary between cities. Administrative data are used in pricing the services components of the telecommunication index. Revenue and quantity data are received from telecommunication providers covering a range of mobile, fixed telephone and internet services (e.g. mobile voice calls, SMS, ADSL, NBN). These data are used to calculate a unit value, essentially an average price for the service, by dividing the revenue measure by the corresponding quantity measure. The use of this approach captures the various pricing structures employed by telecommunications providers, including prepaid and contract plans, as well as bundling arrangements. The methodology used in the Australian CPI for telecommunication services closely follows the unit value approach described in section 11.264 - 11.266 of the international CPI Manual (ILO, 2020). Prices for telecommunication services are published on a one-month lag basis, i.e. published estimates for August denote reported data for July.

Adjusting for quality

8.100 Quality change from variations in plan inclusions by telecommunication service providers is captured using the unit value approach. For example, if the level of service increases by the way of an increased data allowance, and the price does not change, this will be reflected in the unit value decreasing, and a price fall being recorded.

8.101 It is more difficult to account for technological advances in the telecommunication industry, such as the progression from 4G to 5G mobile telecommunications technology. In these cases, the ABS attempts to obtain lower level information from providers with which to make an adjustment.

8.102 All expenditure on recreational products, sporting and recreational activities and holiday travel and accommodation is in the Recreation and culture group. The Recreation and culture group accounted for 12.7% of expenditure in the 17th series CPI weighting pattern, introduced in the December quarter 2017.

8.103 Table 8.10 shows the structure of the Recreation and culture group, examples of items priced and the data sources.

Price collection

8.104 Most items in this group are priced monthly. The exception is Live theatre admission and concerts, which are priced annually, in line with price updates. Prices for newspapers and magazines, computing equipment and software, vehicle hire, overseas tours and domestic air fares are collected nationally. Prices for all other products are collected separately for each capital city. ABS staff collect prices for domestic holiday accommodation from providers in their own state, with these prices then used to calculate indexes for the other capital cities, on the basis that holiday makers may travel interstate.

Areas requiring special pricing procedures

Audio, visual and computing equipment and services

8.105 The ABS does not directly price computing equipment purchased by the CPI population group because of the complexity of pricing these products. Instead, a movement is sourced from the US' Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) personal desktop computer PPI series. This index is derived using a hedonic model approach, which is a technique used to determine the value of the price-determining characteristics for a particular good. For more information see the Research paper: Reviewing the ABS' Hedonic Regression Model for Desktop Computers 2008.

8.106 Audio, visual and computing equipment and services are areas which have traditionally undergone a great deal of technological change, which the ABS keeps close track of in order to ensure the index remains representative. A recent example of this is the introduction of audio and audiovisual streaming services into the sample, as consumers transition towards these services from CDs and DVDs. 

Newspapers, books and stationery

8.106 Book prices for the CPI are based on the actual purchase prices paid by consumers and not the recommended retail prices stated on the books.

Other recreation, sport and culture

8.107 Toys and games are influenced by fashion, making it difficult to price a particular toy over a long period. To deal with this problem the ABS tries to price classic toys and games. Regular discussions are held with retailers to ensure that the most appropriate items are priced.

Holiday travel and accommodation

8.108 Prices for domestic holiday travel and overseas holiday travel are influenced by different factors. For example, changes in foreign currency exchange rates are likely to affect overseas travel prices quite significantly, but will have only a small effect on domestic travel prices. In contrast, major domestic events can have an effect on the cost of holiday travel within Australia, but have no direct effect on the price of overseas holiday travel. 

8.109 Most holiday travel, particularly airfares, are booked in advance. Prices for airfares also tend to vary depending on how far ahead they are booked, the day of the week, and the time of day that the trip is taken. As the Australian CPI is compiled on an acquisitions basis, airfares are collected in advance (at the time of payment), but are only used in the CPI in the month in which the trip is undertaken. For example, Overseas airfares and tours are collected two months in advance (January for travel in March) and domestic airfares are collected one month in advance (January for travel in February). Airfares are normally offered with extra fees, charges and taxes added to the base fare e.g. baggage charges and insurance levies. For CPI purposes, these additional fees, charges, levies and taxes are included in the price of the airfare as they are an inescapable cost of purchasing the airline travel. Foreign country index numbers are adjusted by the exchange rates to reflect the exchange rate impact on accommodation expenses to Australian holiday travellers. For international accommodation, other country's price indexes are sourced and adjusted by exchange rates to reflect the impact on accommodation expenses for Australian holiday travellers.

Quality adjustment

Audio, visual and computing equipment and services

8.110 Audio and visual products change styles and models frequently. These changes quite often improve the quality of the products. Where the product currently priced for the CPI is changed, an adjustment is made to ensure that the concept of pricing to constant quality is maintained. Some common reasons for a quality adjustment are the introduction of a new model or the addition of a bonus feature. Bonus offers are generally disregarded, while cash back offers are included in the price if the take-up rate is considered significant. The analyst must decide whether the changes can be quantified or valued reasonably prior to applying the quality adjustments.

8.111 Computers are also likely to continue experiencing significant technological and quality improvements, and conceptually these changes will need to be reflected in the CPI prices. The hedonic model approach controls for quality change by adjusting the recorded prices when the price-determining characteristics have changed.

Newspapers, books and stationery

8.112 Collecting book prices on a constant quality basis over an extended period of time can be challenging. The ABS uses books on the top ten best seller lists as a guide for selecting books for pricing each period. This is done to best represent consumer purchasing patterns, taking into account best selling books under the fiction, non-fiction and children's categories. When a book falls out of the top ten list ABS staff must replace the specification with a new book appearing on the top ten list. This allows prompt alignment with consumer behaviour.

Other recreation, sport and culture

8.113 Measuring the change in quality of recreational activities such as attending a concert or watching a movie is very subjective as the change in utility resulting from a better concert or movie is likely to differ from person to person. However, the variation in utility is thought to be small and so no quality adjustments are made. Items that have a time component (e.g. club memberships) will be adjusted if the time component of the service being bought changes significantly.

Holiday travel and accommodation

8.114 Measuring quality change in holiday travel is also a subjective task. For example, it is difficult to gauge the quality change resulting from improved or degraded seating in planes, or better quality hotel rooms being included in holiday and airfare tour packages. Quality adjustments are generally not applied to holiday travel items unless the quality change is significant and there are reasonable means of quantifying the change.

Seasonal factors

8.115 Certain types of books and some types of sports or recreational activities are affected by seasonal factors and are available for certain periods of the year only. For example, sporting events are seasonal. In this case admission to a sporting event is priced during the season, and is imputed for the remainder of the year based on the prices of similar items that are available. With annual subscriptions, prices are carried forward until the same month in the following year when the subscription is priced again.

8.116 The Education group includes all expenditure on primary, secondary and tertiary education and preschool services. The Education group accounted for 4.3% of expenditure in the 17th series CPI weighting pattern, introduced in the December quarter 2017.

8.117 Table 8.11 shows the structure of the Education group, examples of items priced and the data sources.

Price collection

8.118 Prices for preschool education are collected from traditional preschools and child care centres that provide preschool education.  Prices for the latter are sourced from CSS data provided by Services Australia. These are supplemented with state-based relief information that is directly sampled.

8.119 Fees for primary and secondary education are collected from both governments and private schools. Prices are collected at the start of the school year as fees are only reviewed annually. The fees are divided into tuition fees and other fees. Other fees are charges which are associated with attending the school, excluding tuition, that must be paid. Examples of these fees are book fees, payments for school excursions, contributions to school building funds, camp fees and fees for swimming lessons.

8.120 Tertiary education fees are collected from universities and colleges of Technical and Further Education (TAFE). University fees are collected annually at the beginning of the university year, while TAFE fees are collected biannually to capture more frequent changes in their fees. Fees are divided into course fees and administrative fees. Common items included in administrative fees are institutional enrolment fees, book and library fees and fees for activities supported by student associations.

Subsidies

8.121 From 2 July 2018, the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) replaced the Child Care Benefit (CCB) and Child Care Rebate (CCR). Parents with children in approved care may be eligible to claim the CCS and reduce their out-of-pocket expenses for preschool fees. The ABS, in line with existing practices, model and adjust payments annually to reflect changes in subsidy rates.

Quality adjustment

8.122 Applying quality adjustments to educational services can be subjective as the factors determining the quality of the services are difficult to measure. Factors affecting the quality of education include the standard of teaching, class sizes and the quality of the equipment provided to students. These factors can affect the quality of the service, but no quality adjustments are made for these because it is hard to measure them accurately.

8.123 The introduction of new charges or fees is an area where quality adjustment is sometimes applied. If the extra charge or fee is accompanied by an improvement in the quality of education, the change in quality will need to be adjusted out in accordance with the concept of pricing to constant quality. In many cases, however, it is difficult to determine whether the new fee is related entirely to a change in the quality of education or is a pure price rise, or a combination of both. For this reason, the treatment of new fees and charges is decided on a case-by-case basis.

8.124 Services priced in this group include expenditure on general insurance and financial services. The Insurance and financial services group accounted for 5.8% of expenditure in the 17th series CPI weighting pattern, introduced in the December quarter 2017.

8.125 Table 8.12 shows the structure of the Insurance and financial services group, examples of items priced and the data sources.

Price collection

8.126 Included under insurance services are motor vehicle insurance and house and contents insurance, but not health insurance which is classified under the Health group. To monitor price movements in home and vehicle insurance services, the ABS utilises monthly third-party web scraped data containing price quotes for a range of customer profiles. Each customer profile contains a combination of characteristics such as insured value, customer age, age of vehicle and type of dwelling, all of which affect the price of insurance. The ABS manually collects prices for Compulsory Third Party (CTP) insurance monthly.

8.127 Deposit and loan facilities (direct charges) contain a range of financial transactions used by households including account keeping fees, transaction fees, credit card fees, loan approval fees and overdraft charges, with prices collected monthly. 

Areas requiring special pricing procedures

Deposit and loan facilities (direct charges)

8.128 Each month the price, terms and conditions for a representative range of banking products (e.g. home loans, savings accounts etc.) are obtained. In the case of percentage fees, such as foreign currency conversion fees, these are applied to a sample of real average transaction dollar amounts. This sample of transactions, moved forward by the twelve-month moving average of the CPI, is updated on a regular basis.

Other financial services

8.129 Real estate agents provide information on a sample of residential property sales (representative of the sale prices in each agent's area) for each of the three months in a calendar quarter. A regression technique is then used to estimate a relationship between property values, property location and commission rates. The regression model is applied to a sample of property transactions, which are indexed each quarter by the twelve-month moving average of the CPI. The sample of properties is updated on a regular basis. Taxes on transfers are calculated by applying duty rates for each state and territory to a sample of property sale transactions for the respective state and territory. From December quarter 2017, Legal fees are sourced from Wage Price Index, Australia and Stockbroking fees are sourced from an Accounting services index from Producer Price Indexes, Australia.

Deposit and loan facilities (indirect charges)

8.130 Further information on financial services in the CPI - including detailed information on the calculation of expenditure weights and price change, as well as ongoing developments - is contained in Appendix 3 – Financial services in the Consumer Price Index.

Insurance

8.131 Because of the practical difficulties in estimating the insurance service charge as premiums net of claims, the gross insurance premium is used to measure the price movement. The assumption underlying this practice is that the cost of the insurance service is proportional to the premium. However, occasionally factors that influence the gross premium, but not the insurance service charge, may change. For example, a natural disaster may raise significantly the proportion of consumers making claims. However, the individual cost of servicing these claims may not be affected. Following the event, companies may raise gross premiums, over an extended period, to recover the unexpected claim payments.

Quality adjustment

8.132 The value of the properties, contents and vehicles insured used by the insurance data models received by the ABS are updated every twelve months. To ensure that the insurance cover is of constant quality over time, the ABS uses a hedonic regression model to account for the change in real value of these items in months where the values are not otherwise updated.