Everyone’s getting mugged by inflation – and you’ve got one man to blame

April 29, 2026 — 5:45pm

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You start one war – and you break everything.

The immediate impact of the war, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, is obvious in the Bureau of Statistics’ March monthly inflation report.

Inflation jumped to a three-year high of 4.6 per cent. But if oil prices – which had fallen through January and February – had simply remained flat through March then the annual rate of inflation would have fallen to 3.4 per cent.

In March alone, instead of a 1.1 per cent increase in inflation, overall prices would have been flat.

That’s the price being paid by all of us because of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s foray into Iran.

And this was just in March. The flow-on impact of the sharp increase in fuel prices had yet to hit prices across closely connected areas.

Chalmers warns inflation will only get worse after prices hit three-year high

For instance, the cost of domestic and international travel fell by 1.5 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively. Anyone who has tried to get a flight within or from Australia recently would know that’s just a fiction.

Closer to home, the cost of milk........

© The Sydney Morning Herald