WHAT WAS CLAIMED
Inflation has doubled under Labor.
OUR VERDICT
Misleading. Economists said the comparison is unreasonable, while inflation has peaked and fallen under the Albanese government.
AAP FACTCHECK - Opposition energy spokesperson Ted O'Brien claims that inflation has doubled under Labor, despite official statistics showing that price growth has eased across this term of government.
The claim is based on a comparison of average inflation over nine years of coalition government and the subsequent two and a half years under the Albanese government.
Economists told AAP FactCheck the comparison isn't reasonable and omits the fact that inflation has peaked and fallen substantially since Labor won the last federal election.
Mr O'Brien made the claim in a Facebook post on February 12, 2025, with an attached infographic.
"Under Labor, inflation has doubled," the caption reads.
"From 2.2% under the Coalition to 4.1% today, Labor's policies are making life more expensive."
Experts say the inflation averages alone aren't a reasonable basis for comparison. (Facebook/AAP)
The official Liberal Party Facebook page had shared a graphic depicting the same inflation comparison on January 29, 2025, but it has since been deleted.
When asked for evidence to support the claim, Mr O'Brien's office pointed to CPI data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Specifically, the average CPI growth rate between September 2013 and June 2022 and between June 2022 and December 2024.
AAP FactCheck was unable to precisely replicate these figures using the cited data.
Nevertheless, the claim that inflation has doubled under Labor is misleading. Experts said the averages aren't a reasonable basis for comparison and using them ignores key context about economic conditions.
Stella Huangfu, an economist at the University of Sydney, said high inflation was a trend across major economies globally in the wake of COVID and that it "doesn't make sense" to tie higher price growth to the Albanese government.
"I don't think this is a fair or meaningful comparison," Associate Professor Huangfu told AAP FactCheck.
Inflation was already 6.1 per cent in annual terms when Labor came to government. It peaked at 7.8 per cent and then fell over the past two years, she explained.
Jakob Madsen, a macro-economics expert at the University of Western Australia, called the coalition's calculations a "complete joke", noting the decline in inflation since the 2022 peak.
He said international factors drove inflation up in 2021-22, making it a trend seen globally.
"[It's] much more relevant to compare our inflation rate vis-a-vis the US or the OECD area," Professor Madsen told AAP FactCheck.
Economist Saul Eslake said the coalition's comparison ignores key context and attributes changing inflation rates to particular governments rather than different economic conditions.
"It doesn't follow, as a matter of logic or of economics, that the differing results are entirely attributable to the governments which were in office during those two intervals," Mr Eslake told AAP FactCheck.
Mr Eslake explained that inflation is what economists call a "lagging indicator", reflecting economic conditions in periods leading up to when the statistics are actually recorded.
He said this context is important because the COVID-19 pandemic had a large effect on the global economy in the years preceding the Albanese government, and particularly inflation rates.
Mr Eslake added that annual inflation fell to just one per cent by late 2020 as lockdowns began.
It then peaked at 7.8 per cent by the end of 2022 due to a combination of disrupted supply chains, rising energy prices amid the Ukraine war, and rebounding demand after lockdowns.
That peak came just a little over two quarters after the coalition was voted out of office.
"To the extent that any government should shoulder the blame for inflation, most of the blame for this spurt in inflation should be sheeted home to the previous coalition government, not the current Labor government," Mr Eslake said.
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