The United States for the most part conducted conservative monetary and fiscal policies that kept budgets close to balance and inflation low, and this underpinned a period of sustained low BIS Review 90/1997  inflation in other countries. In Australia, apart from some periods influenced by sharp commodity price movements, inflation was generally low and close to US rates.
This situation began to change from around the mid 1960s. Tax cuts in the 1964 and 1965 budgets, and subsequent increases in defence spending associated with the Vietnam War, shifted US fiscal policy to an expansionary position.