The Reserve Bank’s preferred measure of underlying inflation remained stuck above the RBA’s 2 per cent to 3 per cent target band last month, underscoring governor Michele Bullock’s concern about price pressures and keeping interest rate cuts a distant prospect.

Trimmed mean inflation increased to 3.5 per cent in October from 3.2 per cent in September, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday, amid price pressures across a broad range of consumer goods and services.