Treasurer Jim Chalmers has attacked the coalition's economic record after the opposition raised the spectre of stagflation following a horror consumer price result.

Headline inflation soared to 3.2 per cent in the September quarter, Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed on Wednesday , jumping out of the Reserve Bank's target band of two to three per cent.

The result has all but scuppered any chances of more interest rate relief next week.

It came just a couple of weeks after the unemployment rate surged to 4.5 per cent - the highest level in almost four years.

The opposition latched onto the surprise result to compare the government's economic management to the disastrous outcomes of the 1970s, when high inflation and unemployment smashed Australians' living standards.

Opposit

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