Learning to fly

What Whitlam could teach Albanese about fiscal restraint

In 1973, when inflation was running hot and Australia was tumbling towards a recession, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam ordered government ministers to travel in economy class.

Ministers around the cabinet greeted Whitlam's edict with murmurs of complaint, trotting out limp excuses about their busy and essential jobs to explain why they should fly at the front end.

"I travel economy, and I'm a great man,' Whitlam is said to have replied. "I could travel economy for the rest of my life, and I'd still be a great man.

"But most of the people around this table are pissants. They could travel first-class the rest of their lives, and they'd still be pissants."

Gough Whitlam presided over arguably the most spendthrift government in post-war history. Crowd-pleasing government programs like free university education were introduced with barely any attention to costs or unintended consequences.

Even so, the current Prime Minister could learn much from his predecessor, who at least understood the basic economic principle that government