The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) produces a range of Consumer Price Index exclusion-based measures, which remove selected components from the CPI basket. Typically, the removed components have volatile price change and/or a pronounced seasonal pattern. These exclusion-based measures can help distinguish short term price fluctuations that impact the quarterly CPI movement providing additional insighs into the general direction of medium-term inflation.

An example of a CPI exclusion-based measure is ‘CPI excluding alcohol and tobacco’, where annual increases in the federal excise tax has a significant effect on tobacco prices each year.

COVID-19 has brought about new challenges in measuring the CPI. For the June 2020 quarter CPI, additional CPI exclusion-based measures have been produced to those previously available in Table 8 of the CPI release. The additional exclusion-based measures, presented in table 1 of this article, help remove some of the temporary impacts of COVID-19 on the June quarter CPI.