24715 – Inflation Volatility

Inflation Volatility measures how much the rate of inflation has varied over recent years. It does not measure how high inflation is. A period of steady 6% inflation and a period of steady 2% inflation would both register as low volatility here; a period swinging between the two would register as high.

The node is a component of Financing & Volatility Conditions (24710), which in turn sits within the APN Investment Conditions Index™ (24700). It is a national time series, not a geographic one — there is no locality distribution or map at this node.

The distinction matters for anyone forming expectations. A stable inflation rate can be planned around whatever its level; an unstable one is harder to price into a long-dated commitment.

The input is constructed by APN rather than published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Each quarter, the year-ended inflation rate is calculated from the headline All Groups Consumer Price Index. The measure is then the standard deviation of those year-ended rates across the preceding eight quarters, expressed in percentage points of the inflation rate.

The series begins in the December quarter of 2013: four quarters are consumed establishing the first year-ended rate, and eight more completing the first rolling window, from an index history starting in 2011.

Inflation variability in the June 2026 quarter reads 0.76 percentage points, marginally below its comparison-window average of 0.87. The standardised reading of −0.17 places the quarter near the middle of this node's record, at an intensity position of 58.0 across 51 quarters.

The measure has contracted substantially from its peak. It reached 2.30 percentage points in the December quarter of 2022, when year-ended inflation was running at 7.86%, and has fallen through every subsequent year as the surge and its unwinding passed out of the rolling window. Readings since late 2025 have sat between 0.66 and 0.76.

Because the window covers eight quarters, this measure describes the recent past rather than the current quarter alone. Year-ended inflation in the June 2026 quarter was 3.94%; the reading above describes how much that rate has varied since mid-2024, not where it stands today.

• The rolling window carries the recent past. Each reading reflects eight quarters of inflation history, so a single unusual quarter influences the measure for two years and the series responds to change more slowly than the inflation rate itself.
• Built on the quarterly index, not the monthly indicator. The Bureau's monthly consumer price indicator would allow a finer measure, but its headline series begins only in April 2024 and cannot support this construction. A monthly refinement becomes available if that history is extended.
• Bespoke comparison window. This node is measured against 2013–2025, a bespoke window required because the rolling construction cannot produce a reading before the December quarter of 2013. The window is ratified as part of this node's certification.
• Single input. There is no averaging across sources to absorb a revision at the source, and no second measure of inflation variability to corroborate the reading. Consumer price index revisions pass through in full.
• Comparison basis. The position ranks this quarter against the 51 quarters in which the input is present. That full-coverage basis is the ratified one across the 24700 series; the all-rows basis is retired.
• Signed direction. This component enters the index negated: variable inflation is an adverse condition for investment. Its signed position of 42.0 and its intensity position of 58.0 describe the same quarter on two frames — one carrying that direction, the other measuring distance from the node's own record without regard to it.

The other five components of Financing & Volatility Conditions (24710). Each is independently certified and enters that branch at equal weight.