A recent worldwide study found that Sydney is the world’s seventh most expensive city and Melbourne the eighth.
Melbourne and Sydney are now supposed to be 50% dearer to live in than New York but like all studies we need to be careful about what conclusions we draw from the data. The figures are largely influenced by the dramatic rise in the Australian dollar because the base currency for the data is the US dollar. So, people in other countries would notice the difference when they come to Australia (not great for international tourism at QVM) but for us the change is hardly noticeable. Australia’s underlying rate of inflation remains at a manageable 2.5%.
By coincidence, your editor received a comment from a US tourist last weekend that she was very happy with her holiday in Australia but was amazed by how expensive our fruit and vegetables were at the market compared with back home. Can’t say I have ever heard that complaint before.