Despite the reasonable monthly result, year-on-year growth has slowed to be a bit below the 5-year average.
State versus state
The strong housing markets in Sydney and Melbourne have generally supported household consumption since 2013.
At the state level retail turnover growth has been led through the cycle by New South Wales and Victoria, but now there is some evidence that other states are beginning to shine.
Since a new IKEA was opened in sleepy Canberra in November, the ACT has shot the lights out to lead annual retail turnover growth by a wide margin.
Industry groups
The best industry performers in the month were clothing and footwear (+1.1 per cent) and food (posting +0.6 per cent rebound after some soft readings).
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