Australians are paying far more than overseas consumers for an extensive range of products, despite the Australian dollar surging past parity with the US dollar. A Crikey analysis shows consumers sometimes pay more than twice as much for identical products sold in the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

The high comparative costs of books sold locally and the inexplicably higher prices at Apple’s iTunes store for Australians are well known. But the price differential extends across a number of products. The results further discredit the campaign by Australian retailers to target online shopping by demanding the government lower the GST threshold on goods purchased overseas.