Thank you for pointing this out. As much as I like to criticise the government (in many cases, well-deserved), it's important to keep a nuanced perspective and reserve criticism for cases that indeed warrant it. Not basing long term contracts on short term economic fluctuations seems like a reasonable policy.

If you're going to account for inflation in a contract, I believe indexing is the preferred method anyway. Many government pensions - and some salaries - are indexed to inflation.