What happened to Labor’s small target? I know I have posed this question before, but the target actually seems to be getting bigger and bigger much like Jack’s beanstalk – from a handful of magic beans a huge beanstalk grew and at the top of the beanstalk lived a giant.

With the benefit of a short period of hindsight, Albanese’s small target strategy to secure election victory in 2022 looks masterful. Having drummed up an otherworldly hate campaign directed at Scott Morrison – he wasn’t much good but he never deserved the vitriol thrown at him – Labor set out to assure the voters that its plans were minimalist and totally directed to worthy causes – saving the planet, helping the disadvantaged, et cetera, et cetera.

Gone was Bill Shorten’s radical tax reform agenda. There were no explicit plans to spend vastly more money than the admittedly profligate government that Albanese was seeking to replace. To be sure, the Voice was there and was the first item mentioned by the newly elected prime minister. At that stage, most voters had no idea of the radical plans that Labor and its activist supporters had in mind for this proposed far-reaching constitutional amendment.

So when did small become big, modest become large-scale, limited become radical? Let’s face it, the small target was always a ruse. After all, Labor had been out of power since 2013 and the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years were not easy ones, even if a number of expensive and uncapped spending programs were instituted during those terms of government – think here particularly the NDIS, but also Gonski school funding. Many current Labor leaders could list items of unfinished business.

Consider the establishment of the off-budget funds that at least were part of Labor’s explicit election platform. Notwithstanding the fact that Treasurer Jim Chalmers keeps going on about the trillion dollars of debt Labor has inherited and ‘with nothing to show for it’, he doesn’t seem to have any qualms about adding to this debt – $20 billion for Rewiring the Nation and $15 billion for the National Reconstruction Fund.  (The $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund is currently stuck in the Senate.)

Apart from the fact that the actual net government debt is nowhere near one trillion dollars – higher interest rates have the effect of deflating the debt – the notion that there is nothing to show for is just hypocritical. After all, Labor didn’t oppose any of the spending by the Coalition government and, indeed, urged then Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, to spend even more. Note here Labor’s pleas to extend the badly designed and expensive JobKeeper scheme.

Notwithstanding the revenue boost associated with booming commodity prices, Chalmers is under pressure to spend the additional revenue rather than bank it. The updates on the spending under the NDIS point to extraordinary future increases for a scheme that was only intended to cover just over 400,000 persons with disabilities. The number of participants just keeps rising, particularly among young boys.

While fiddling at the edges with cleaning up some outright fraud in the scheme, Labor has no plans to rein in spending on the NDIS that will consume a rapidly rising proportion of the budget. Voters should be concerned but have been kept in the dark.

Labor failed to mention during the election campaign its intention to boost migration numbers beyond anything that we have seen in the past. Net overseas migration is now expected to reach around 400,000 this calendar year. Combined with natural population growth, we should now expect some of the highest growth rates in the total population ever.

Unsurprisingly, this has led to a critical situation for renters and additional pressures on roads, public transport and services in the cities to which migrants flock – principally Melbourne and Sydney. Does anyone think that surging migration is consistent with a small target?

When it comes to climate policy, Labor had declared that it would legislate a net zero 2050 target as well as a 43 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030. Given the Coalition had (bizarrely) thrown its support behind net zero by 2050 (it did have a much lower target for 2030), voters could be forgiven for thinking that such a step was a mere formality.

The real danger down the track is that the law will provide the basis for activists to legally object to projects, particularly fossil fuel ones, because they will be seen as being inconsistent with the targets. Another note here: taxpayers actually fund these lawyers to take such actions.

There is no doubt that there was real appeal to Labor’s pledge to reduce electricity prices by $275 per year on average by 2025.  The modelling told Labor this was possible even though the modelling was fundamentally flawed, including being confused about retail and wholesale electricity prices. Of course, that pledge now looks like a bad joke and households and businesses have already faced sharp rises in electricity bills with a further increase from mid-year of between one-quarter and one-third.

Climate Change and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen (B1), has been prancing around Parliament House, cock-a-hoop about passing the revised Safeguards Mechanism legislation after negotiating with the Greens. My guess is voters overwhelmingly wouldn’t have a clue about the imposition of what is, in effect, a carbon tax and will inevitably lead to the closure of emissions-intensive plants, particularly in the regions. Bowen’s victory lap may be cut short when prices soar, factories close and foreign investment flees.

My strongest sinking feeling about the Albanese government and its big target is the complete lack of attention to detail when it comes to policy. It is reminiscent of Albanese equating the success of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd terms in office with the number of pieces of legislation passed. The reality is that many of these laws have created the problems we are currently facing – the poor drafting of the NDIS legislation is a case-in-point.

Busyness is not the same as effectiveness. Indeed, the most successful governments try to get out of the way and to pass as few laws as possible. But this is not Labor’s way. Just as having a small target and sticking to it was never going to be Labor’s way. There are favours to be doled out, penalties to be imposed, monies to be spent, appointments to be made. In other words, there’s a country to change and there’s no time to wait. At this stage, the electorate seems to be lovin’ it, big or small target.