As next week’s all but certain rate rise looms, there is one thing we can all agree on: the end of war in the Middle East can’t come soon enough

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Jim Chalmers is blaming the latest shocking inflation figures on the worsening Middle East conflict, and he has a point.

The trouble is, voters aren’t buying what the treasurer is selling.

CPI release comes ahead of Reserve Bank decision next week as the Middle East conflict intensifies the cost-of-living crisis

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Australia’s headline inflation rate has accelerated to 4.3%, with a key gauge that strips out volatile prices also elevated, sharpening expectations of another interest rate rise next week.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s preferred measure of consumer prices, called underlying inflation, came in at an annual 3.6% to September.