Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

The answer to the honourable member’s question is that what has historically been used as a deflator for the purposes of getting an accurate picture of movement and changes in relative prices, the non-farm GDP deflator, has actually in recent times become quite volatile because of the impact of the mining boom. Therefore, it was felt that there was a better way of reflecting the changes over time, through using the CPI, because there have been considerable fluctuations as a result of the impact of the mining boom and major changes in mineral prices. If you want to see the impact of that, for example, look at the projected nominal GDP figures for the forthcoming financial year.

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