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The rate of inflation in Australia has slowed to an annual rate of 7 per cent, further muddying the waters of whether the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will increase rates when it meets on Tuesday.
New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that headline inflation rose by 1.4 per cent in the March quarter, and by 7 per cent on an annual basis.
Today's figure will prove crucial to the nation's economists after the RBA decided to hold the cash rate at 3.6 per cent in April.
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Annual trimmed mean inflation, a measure the RBA looks closely at, was 6.6 per cent, down from 6.9 per cent in the December quarter.
Today's data will improve the case of the RBA keeping interest rates on hold for a second month running, but is still contrast with a stubbornly high level of inflation.
Despite this, head of prices statistics at the ABS Michelle Marquardt said there are signs that price rises are beginning to ease.
"CPI inflation slowed in the March quarter, with the quarterly rise being the lowest since December 2021," Marquardt said.
"While prices continued to rise for most goods and services, many of these increases were smaller than they have been in recent quarters."
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Marquardt said that the biggest drivers of inflation in the March quarter were health and energy bills.
"Prices for medical and hospital services typically rise in the March quarter as GPs and other health service providers review their consultation fees, and the Medicare Safety Net is reset at the start of the calendar year," she said.
"This year some private health insurance premiums also increased in January, adding to the price rise for medical and hospital services.
"Tertiary education fees are also indexed at the start of the year. This quarter additional strength was seen in tertiary education as changes in student contribution bands and fees introduced in 2021 as part of the Jobs-ready Graduates Package continued to flow through to the index."
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When asked what he suspects the RBA will do next week, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said "it could go either way".
"As we've been talking about, inflation is slowing down but it's still very high. So the Reserve Bank will be looking at that," he said.
"It will also be looking at the recent jobs figures, most recent jobs figures we saw that unemployment is at 3.5 per cent, that's near a 50-year low. There's still a lot of strong job creation because employers in many areas still desperate for staff so.
"There's not much of a slow down in the jobs market. Inflation is still really strong, but, as the Reserve Bank says, the cost of living pressures and the higher interest rates are really hurting households especially low-income households."
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