Barnaby Is Right

Recently I commented to a Twitter follower that, after my 3-weeks-of-work-in-1 spent on researching the government’s National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting department’s entire Register of “polluters” (results here), I now consider every single word that this government utters to be a lie.  By default.

And here comes Wayne Swan talking lying about the economy, confirming that I was right.

From the Australian (emphasis added):

Treasurer Wayne Swan has played down an inflation surge as he defended the government’s productivity agenda, saying its benefits would not be realised overnight.

Mr Swan said a summer of natural disasters and higher fruit prices were responsible for a stronger than expected increase in Australia’s consumer price index, which he accepted was making life harder for struggling families.

“These events are one-off events and they have a one-off impact on the CPI,” he said.

The Treasurer said a 27 per cent increase in fruit prices had contributed 0.4 per cent to the total 0.9 per cent inflation rate.

Bullshit.

Not “fruit” prices.

“Food” prices.

From the Australian Bureau of Statistics, whence cometh said CPI figures fraudulently misquoth by the completely despicable truth-avoidance expert, Treasurer Swan (emphasis added):

JUNE KEY FIGURES

	Mar Qtr 2011 to Jun Qtr 2011	Jun Qtr 2010 to Jun Qtr 2011
Weighted average of eight capital cities	% change	% change
Food	1.4	6.1
Alcohol and tobacco	0.7	5.6
Clothing and footwear	2.5	1.1
Housing	0.4	4.6
Household contents and services	1.5	0.1
Health	2.0	4.0
Transportation	1.2	3.5
Communication	0.4	0.4
Recreation	-0.6	-0.3
Education	0.0	5.9
Financial and insurance services	1.6	4.2
All groups	0.9	3.6
All groups excluding Housing and Financial and insurance services	1.0	3.2

Contribution to quarterly change – June Quarter 2011

OVERVIEW OF CPI MOVEMENTS

* The most significant price rises this quarter were for fruit (+26.9%), automotive fuel (+4.0%), hospital and medical services (+3.4%), furniture (+6.0%), deposit and loan facilities (+2.1%) and rents (+1.1%).

FOOD prices increased by 1.4% in the quarter (table, in red).

FOOD price increases contributed almost half (0.4%) of the 0.9% increase in the CPI.

“Fruit” alone did NOT contribute 0.4% of the 0.9% increase in the CPI.

Not unless the entire nation bought fruit and only fruit to eat during the March to June quarter.

Wayne Swan lied.

Again.

Tags: ABS, consumer price index, CPI, fruit, liar, lies, lying, newspeak, orwell, unspeak, wayne swan