Will Albanese walk in the footsteps of Whitlam?

Fossil fuel prices are, in some cases, such as thermal coal and natural gas, at record highs, and in the case of oil, at a price substantially above the average of the last 10 years. Additionally, the government's net-zero policy by 2050 is set to dramatically increase power prices as cheap-at-the-margin-and-expensive-in-the-network unreliables, like wind and solar, are added to the system.

At the same time, the previous Morrison government substantially boosted the size of government with spending increasing from 27.7 percent of GDP in 2020 to 34.8 percent in 2021, and money supply over the course of the pandemic rose between 30 and 50 percent.

Albanese will find government spending hard to rein in, just as it was for Whitlam, even though most of the increases are the work of others.

He has inherited the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), originally from the Gillard government, which is set to overtake Medicare expenditure by 2025.

That's assuming Medicare expenditure doesn't increase, which it probably will as the government is under pressure to bolster bulk-billing.

Labor has also made promises to increase the number and payment of nurses in aged care and increase the subsidies and eligibility for childcare, both of which will hit budget expenditure.

They have also made promises for massive capital expenditure in energy and housing, which will freeze out more productive private investment in other areas of demand and stretch government borrowing.

Wages are also on an upward trajectory. The Australian Council of Trade Unions has made the bizarre claim that company profits cause inflation, and the only way to beat it is to increase wages.

With a new government, the Fair Work Commission seems to agree. Legislation introduced in the last sitting of parliament now makes pattern bargaining legal again (first time since 2005), and the government has also signalled it will try to eliminate "insecure" work, which looks like a direct attack on contractors and the gig economy.

This has the potential to lead to wage rises on the back of decreased flexibility and decreased productivity.

So all the conditions for stagflation - rapidly increasing government expenditure, skyrocketing energy prices, an inflexible economy, and low productivity growth - are in place as they were for Whitlam, coupled with similarly ambitious social policies.

There is even an echo of Whitlam in The Voice referendum. The Voice owes its provenance to his Aboriginal Land Fund, immortalised in the picture of him sitting down at Wave Hill Station and pouring sand from the land, where a 30-year lease had just been purchased for the Aborigines, into the hands of elder Vincent Lingiari.