Late last year the Productivity Commission provided some guidance about how we might lift our performance with the release of the first of its five-yearly reports – the Shifting the Dial report. This is another example of Australian policy institutions tackling important issues through serious and systematic reviews. A central theme of the report is the importance of services and cities.
The increase in core inflation reflected a reversal of some of the factors that had temporarily lowered it in 2003 and it also was elevated in the first half of last year by the pass-through of increases in the prices of energy, commodities, and other imports.