Consumers have probably noticed it during their weekly supermarket trip or at the petrol pump already - but it's been confirmed this morning that inflation is now at 3.3 per cent - the highest in nearly a decade.
The number is far higher than economists predicted.
The last time there was a similar peak was when GST was increased from 12.5 per cent to 15 per cent in 2011.
Inflation's at 3.3 percent in an increase like this not seen since GST was hiked in 2011.
At the time, annual inflation had peaked at 5.3 per cent in June 2011, impacted by a GST increase of 2.5 percentage points that came into effect in October 2010.
Before then, annual inflation reached 5.1 per cent in the September 2008 quarter, during the time of the global financial crisis.
1 NEWS reporter Katie Bradford explains what this means for consumers.
However, the inflation peak confirmed today is largely due to the price of petrol going up almost $1 since this time last year, as well as the cost of building new houses, with construction and building materials rising.
Food at supermarkets has also gone up 1.6 per cent, with vegetables up seven per cent.
1 NEWS’ Katie Bradford explains what’s driving a major jump in inflation.
As for going out to a restaurant or buying a ready-meal, those places have gone up two per cent.
It means the likelihood of an increase to the Official Cash Rate (OCR), and therefore an increase in interest rates, is likely to happen a lot faster than expected as both the Government and the Reserve Bank look at what they can do to try and cool the economy down.
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