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Various electronic voting channels have been introduced across a range of countries. In some countries these new channels have proved uncontroversial, while in others, they remain contentious and have even been abandoned. Relatively little is known about whether and why voters have confidence in new and old voting channels. Australia provides a useful case for researching these issues, since it is a mature democracy in which election processes and outcomes are widely accepted. The 2013 Australian Election Study results show that in this context, voters have most confidence in paper-based voting and least in voting via smartphones. Positive political attachments, ease of voting and familiarity with technology are all associated with higher levels of confidence in voting channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large corporations in Australia have shifted from limited to more fulsome engagement in political activity (CPA) in recent decades. The paper argues that this reflects corporate institutional change in response to wider changes in the environment that have included growing government intervention, increased industry concentration and intra-sectoral competition, and a more complex and challenging discursive and issues environment. Quantitative and regression-based analysis of the drivers of CPA are employed and the analysis is extended and deepened with material drawn from interviews with twenty-five corporate government relations professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate political activity by large firms has increased in a range of western countries and in Australia. There has also been an increased tendency for large firms to lobby individually on firm-centred agendas. Both trends have seen large firms engaging in institutional adaptation, primarily through developing dedicated government relations functions (GRF). The last research on this topic in Australia was thirty years ago (Bell and Warhurst [1993]. "Business Political Activism and Government Relations in Large Companies in Australia." Australian Journal of Political Science 28: 201–220.) and this paper updates this earlier research. It also frames the relevant developments as an important set of institutional challenges, not only for government relations (GR) managers within corporate hierarchies, but also in interacting with and influencing other key institutional interlocutors, especially government policy makers. The way in which GR managers deal with such challenges through building supportive relations with key internal and external interlocutors, and especially how this shapes the business-government relationship more broadly, is a key focus of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brereton Report focuses on the unlawful killings of prisoners and others who were hors de combat. Buried in the 530-page report, however, are indications of other violations of international humanitarian law such as cruel treatment. This paper looks at the other kinds of potential war crimes hinted at in the report and examines Australia's obligation to include these in its responses to the Inquiry. It shows how criminal investigations, redress programmes and Defence reform will be incomplete unless the focus is broadened to include the full spectrum of wrongs that have been uncovered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural reforms over the past several decades have seen the institution of local government in Australia become progressively less local. Primarily as a result of municipal amalgamation, the average population of Australia's local governments has more than doubled since the early 1990s. The democratic implications of this de-localisation, however, have been severely understudied. This article addresses this gap by analysing the effect of municipality size on several modes of local political participation in the mainland capital city regions of Adelaide and Perth. Drawing on a quantitative analysis of primary survey and electoral data, this paper presents evidence of a negative relationship between municipality size and participation – as size increases, rates of voting, candidacy, contact with local representatives, and council meeting attendance decrease. The implications for local government's input legitimacy and its role as a training ground for democracy – as well as options for 're-localising' local politics – are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being the most tangibly impacted by the first-order effects of a warming climate, much of Australia's agricultural regions have remained relatively conservative in their views on climate change and the need for adaptation. This paper aims to understand how the experience of an extreme climate event like the 2017–2020 drought might shift opinions and values on these issues within agricultural communities. Through in-depth interviews with 20 graziers across Northwest NSW during the worst days of the drought, we found that various psychological lock-ins, historical memories of resilience, and local cultural values appeared to be undermining the perception of their vulnerability, while enhancing perceptions of their ability to endure. Such discursive constructions appear to explain why a jarring climatic event like the 2017–2020 drought was failing to produce a noticeable shift in their views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disinformation and misinformation on social media platforms are growing regulatory concerns for governments. In this paper, we examine Australia's DIGI Code of Practice (CoP). The CoP is a voluntary set of commitments to address false content on platforms that is overseen by Australia's digital media industry. It was established in response to a federal government directive. We evaluate the DIGI CoP by comparing it to the code it was partially based on: the EU's Code of Practice on Disinformation (EU CPD). The EU CPD also attempted voluntary regulation, and yet the EU is now moving towards a strengthened CPD. While the DIGI CoP improves upon the original EU CPD, the original version had limited accountability measures and notable content exclusions. We conclude by discussing a recent review of the CoP, suggesting that Australia will also strengthen regulation in this area. Lastly, we address ongoing tensions around media freedom and accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The devastating bushfires of late 2019/ early 2020 in Australia placed the country firmly in the international spotlight. The unprecedented scale, number and severity of these fires drew attention to the role of Australia's changing climate and the broader process of climate change. It also triggered debates about the link between climate change and security, not least given concerns over the deployment of military resources in response and the existential nature of the threat to people and ecosystems. This paper examines the climate change-security relationship in the Australian context. It examines how climate change and security are related before assessing the extent to which this connection is reflected in current policy and practices in Australia. The paper concludes by reflecting on whether the bushfire crisis of 2019–20 is likely to precipitate a major change in policy settings, practices and public debate on climate change and security in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As liberal democracies intensify their efforts to digitise democracy, more governance services and processes are shifting online. Malign foreign entities (MFEs) are exploiting this phenomenon of digital era governance (DEG) to weaken democracies through information warfare operations. Australia is not immune to this, yet there is limited research exploring the relationship between digital democracy and foreign interference in the Australian context. Addressing this lacuna, this paper identifies the ways in which DEG might inadvertently produce opportunities for MFEs to target the Nation's core democratic infrastructure. Through the implicit application of a tri-theoretical framework of DEG, democratic theory, and institutional theory, I argue that DEG has induced a series of new vulnerabilities in Australia's political processes and institutions that challenge the legitimacy of decision-making inputs and outputs. MFEs may exploit these potential vulnerabilities by tapping into key digitally-amplified problems such as inauthenticity, data insecurity, and disinformation, thereby threatening Australia's democratic sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, the debate about Australia's relationship with Indigenous people has entered a new phase with the prospect of a referendum to amend the Constitution. In this paper we use a wide range of survey data going back to the 1970s to examine public opinion towards Indigenous issues and likely voting in any future referendum to recognise Indigenous Australians. Our results show a long-term liberalisation in public opinion which can be traced mainly to period effects within the electorate. This liberalisation in opinion is the major explanation for the large majority who would currently support a change in the Constitution to recognise Indigenous peoples. Our results have significant policy implications for how governments approach the inherent difficulties surrounding Indigenous recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses novel electronic tools to identify the degree to which Australia was listening to Indigenous peoples in a 'national conversation' about constitutional recognition between 2015 and late 2017. The results show that while there was a superficial overlap in themes, there were important differences of framing. Recognition remained a largely formal, elite and non-Indigenous concern, with First Nations focusing on treaties, sovereignty, listening and respect. Interaction was noticeably aggressive, but not exclusively so. Non-Indigenous people avoided discussing racism, and talked more frequently about history, framing issues in the past tense; First Nations talked about the here and now. And despite more focus on everyday racism, Indigenous peoples were consistently more positive and proud, rejecting 'plight' constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 crisis highlighted issues of trust in government and experts, as citizens were asked to accept restrictions on liberties in order to slow the spread of the virus. Based on a survey of 1992 Australians conducted in May 2020, this paper reports on the attitudes of Australians toward the responses of their State and Federal governments to the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, we found support for government responses differed with partisan alignment. However, when we controlled for values differences, we found that values predicted social distancing attitudes and behaviour. This oppugns the common conclusion in political psychology that party alignment is a proxy for values. Scientists were trusted more than political institutions or actors for accurate COVID-19 information, and likewise, traditional media were preferred to online sources. These findings have implications for policy communication when individual action is required to address collective goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most established democracies, trends in political trust in recent decades have fluctuated, but have not declined strongly. Citizens' democratic attitudes in many countries have even proven to be resilient in the face of the Great Recession. Such trends contrast sharply with the observation of a gradual and continued decline of Australian's trust in politics since 2007. Using a combined file of seven Australian Election Study surveys, employing exactly comparable questions and methodologies, this paper tests two explanations – government performance and political detachment – to account for this remarkable decline. The findings show that both a lack of performance by successive governments and a broad detachment from politics matter. The findings suggest that there is no single explanation for the decline; rather, a diverse range of inter-related factors appear to be at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inheritance drives wealth concentration and economic inequality, meaning there is a strong case for wealth transfer taxation as an important element of government redistributive policy. In contrast to many OECD countries, Australia has not had estate or inheritance taxes for 40 years and little is known about contemporary public attitudes towards wealth transfer taxation. This paper draws on qualitative interviews investigating the attitudes of young adult and senior Australians towards wealth transfer taxation. Both groups supported the idea of reintroducing wealth transfer taxation in Australia, largely due to an almost universal absence of expectation that people would or should leave bequests to their descendants. These findings raise the possibility that considering the reintroduction of appropriately targeted wealth transfer taxation in Australia at a time when the Commonwealth Government is experiencing acute fiscal pressures may not generate as much public resistance as might have been assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific warnings about impending climate disaster and experts' advocacy for more and better climate science have been largely unsuccessful for advancing evidence-based policy in Australia. Continuing expectations to the contrary stem from a reliance on the supposed ability of science to prime political understandings of climate change. This paper shows how scientists undermine this 'deficit model' ideal by conflating types and uses of evidence and expertise in policymaking. These tactics are unconvincing for conservative opponents, for whom climate science is far from the last word on what climate change means. This paper examines experts' rhetorical tactics through the eyes of conservative policymakers and, thereby, proposes a strategy more likely to effect resilient climate adaptation and mitigation policies in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The percentage of women elected in the Australian Parliament is comparatively low. This poor track record has generated debate within political parties about the necessity of gender quotas (or targets) to increase women's representation. Using the 2016 Australian Election Study, this paper proposes to test support for different measures aiming to increasing women's representation in Australian politics. More specifically, I investigate the role of partisanship in explaining gender differences in support for gender quotas. I find that differences in support for quotas are greater among women, and among men, than between women and men. The paper also demonstrates that the role of political values in explaining differences in support for gender quotas is non-uniform. Indeed, attitudes towards government intervention, minority rights, and gender equality are more crucial in explaining differences in support for legislative quotas among men than among women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does local economic inequality affect the native-immigrant gap in immigration attitudes? Existing studies do not distinguish between native and immigrant citizens, which is problematic because immigrants represent an increasing share of the population and voting public. Immigrant citizens, as legal residents, receive the same legal and social protections as native citizens. However, as an out-group, they are less likely to be attached to the national and cultural identity of a host country. This paper uses the Australian Election Study to show that immigrant citizens prioritise cultural or psychological considerations in forming immigration attitudes. As local economic inequality rises, immigrant citizens' support for immigration strengthens regardless of their country of origin, reason for migration and length of stay in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of boundary spanning regimes has emerged to describe activity across policy subsystems that seek to manage ‘wicked’ public policy problems. This paper examines two existing public policy theories, namely those of exogenous shocks and the Advocacy Coalition Framework theories and assesses their capacity to explain why boundary spanning regimes emerge. It argues that broad structural conditions play an important role in shaping boundary spanning activity in the case studies discussed in this paper, indicating limitations in these theories which tend to overlook such conditions. The paper tests the explanations for policy change through original qualitative analysis of incremental convergence across the welfare and immigration policy fields in Australia from 1947 to 1996. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper introduces some of the recurrent themes of industry policy and debates about what governments can, might and should do – as well as have done – to foster desired patterns of economic development in a market economy. It does so by way of introduction to the four papers on Australian industry policy that make up this symposium. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper challenges the tendency among contemporary historians and political scientists to read secularism and religion in Australian political history in binary terms. It is argued that this framework is anachronistic, creating a barrier to a proper appreciation of religion in Australian political history. In keeping with much British Enlightenment thinking, religion through much of Australia's history was deemed to have great social utility and its promotion was of central secular significance. This understanding framed the education debates of the second half of the nineteenth century as well as the social welfare reforms and institution building around the Federation period. Such developments cast doubt on claims that secularism of an exclusionary kind is a key element of the now widely invoked category of the Australian settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2017 Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey led to the adoption of same-sex marriage. Using ecological analysis, this paper tests five hypotheses to explain voting in the plebiscite. Social characteristics exerted a strong influence on the vote, with a higher ‘yes’ vote in more affluent and suburban electorates, and a higher ‘no’ vote in electorates with large numbers of traditional households. The strongest predictor of a ‘no’ vote was electorates with large proportions of newly arrived immigrants. Electorates that had larger proportions of female same-sex couples displayed a higher ‘yes’ vote. Higher turnout in the plebiscite benefitted the ‘yes’ vote. Finally, the views of the local MP on the issue were positively related to the result in their electorate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online petitions are an important feature of contemporary political engagement in advanced democracies. In this paper we report on a unique data set - covering a five year period and over 17,000 petitions - documenting the development of the Change.org platform in Australia. Australia presents an interesting case as, until very recently, there was no national government hosted online petition site. Our analysis results in three findings that advance scholarship on online petitions. First, we find the majority of petitions are in fact targeted at government, and that their issue area is of a political nature. Second, we find that most signers of petitions sign a single petition - they are not serial participants. Finally, we show that ‘super users’ of the online petition system engage broadly as well as often. Together these findings demonstrate that online petition creation and signing - even on commercial platforms - is a distinct and important part of citizen engagement in politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite long-termresearch agendas around how to better understand and address wicked problems, they remain 'wicked' while crises generally come to an end. The objective of this paper is to assess whether governments seeking to address wicked problems can learn lessons from the insights of crisis management. While we are careful to avoid stretching the lessons of crisis management too far, we argue that there is untapped potential in establishing the broader applicability of crisis research to wicked problems. In doing so, we identify traditional roadblocks to addressing wicked issues and suggest that they are much less discernible in many crisis conditions. We then illustrate via a case study of the whole-ofgovernment response to the 2011 Queensland Floods in Australia. The case has broader relevance beyond Australia in identifying how the challenges of crisis management can help us find better ways of addressing seemingly intractable wicked policy problems, particularly through strategic crisis framing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the importance of immigration to Australia, there is little systematic research on the causes of support among Australian citizens for increased, stable or decreased immigration. This paper advances our understanding of Australian public attitudes to immigration levels in the light of the established international literature on public opinion and immigration. Using 2013 Australian Electoral Study (AES) data, we show that, as in other countries, Australian citizens' attitudes to immigrant numbers are partly driven by a combination of sociotropic economic considerations and perceptions of the socio-cultural impact of immigrants. In addition, we argue that political mobilisation has an impact on attitudes toward immigration that has not received sufficient attention. We demonstrate that citizens who accepted the Coalition's rhetoric on asylum seeker arrivals were more likely to want overall immigrant numbers reduced. Finally, we combine the individual level AES data with electoral district level data to test the impact of contact with immigrants on attitudes to immigrant numbers. Australians living in electoral districts with higher percentages of non-white immigrants are more likely to want lower immigrant numbers than those living in districts with fewer non-white immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys the contribution that articles on public policy have made to this journal in its first half-century. To help organise those contributions, the paper makes a rough distinction between works of a primarily explanatory nature and those that can be thought of as having a substantive focus on analysing particular policy areas or issues. It observes the paucity of policy studies in the 1960s and 1970; the rapid rise in the 1980s; and a plateauing and even perhaps decline after that. It notes the desultory interest in theoretical questions and welcome attempts to employ the comparative method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commenting on ‘Australian Bicameralism as Semi-Parliamentarianism’, this paper reconstructs the underlying justification of the issue-by-issue median as a rule of collective choice, a rule central to the theory of complex majoritarianism. In semi-parliamentary systems, this rule is institutionalised in parliamentary chambers that make law and policy by issue specific majorities. The comment questions whether it is necessary to balance the vision of complex majoritarianism with the principle of simple majoritarianism, arguing that the values of identifiability, clarity of responsibility and stability are instrumental rather than intrinsic values. It notes further problems with semi-parliamentarianism as a two-chamber system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of semi-parliamentarianism provides a parsimonious classificatory description of Australian politics as it is really practiced. This concept encapsulates the tension in Australia's executive-legislative relations: balancing the government's requirement to maintain confidence only within the House of Representatives and the fact of the Senate's equally legitimate powers. In this way, semi-parliamentarianism pin-points the distinction between the Australian and other parliamentary systems. This has implications for the practice of real-world politics because political actors conceptualise and fulfil their roles differently in each chamber. Further, the paper argues that the concept of semi-parliamentarianism reveals why a powerful upper chamber with equal legitimacy transforms politics into a form that is no longer recognisably parliamentary. Finally, the concept of semi-parliamentarism may facilitate a more comprehensive integration of Australian executive-legislative relations into international debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers a new framework for understanding the decision-making strategies of first-time voters. Using data from in-depth interviews with young people prior to the 2013 Australian federal election, the paper explores the extent to which our participants were knowledgeable about the upcoming election and the degree to which they invested cognitive effort into making their voting choice. The analysis reveals five distinct voting strategy typologies, which we use to construct a conceptual model that identifies and describes different voting approaches employed by young people. The findings show that young people are not a homogenous group of disinterested and disengaged voters. Instead, within a population of young citizens there are varying levels of interest and effort being invested into electoral participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether Australia’s major political parties continue to fulfil a representational role. This was often the traditional view of the parties, but has been much criticised in recent decades by scholars arguing they have largely converged, moderating their policies and abandoning their links with civil society. Here I outline a theoretical framework – supported with evidence from four empirical tests – that characterises the major parties as interest aggregators representing electoral alliances made up of politicians, activists, financial contributors and voters, united by key economic policy goals. These actors create a centrifugal force, pushing party policies away from each other in salient areas. Using this framework, I theorise that the parties matter for policy outcomes, building on the assumption that cleavages in the social structure are reflected in the political system, with policy implementation the result of the competing demands and interests of the parties’ constituencies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent studies regarding reconciliation have argued that restorative justice creates depoliticised consensus. This paper tests this argument by exploring the Hawke government’s role in the reconciliation of the Australian public with Vietnam veterans in 1987, and the opportunities that this resolution created to mark Anzac Day free of the complicating tensions that had characterised the day in the period since the Vietnam War. It argues that the restorative justice evident in the reincorporation of Vietnam veterans into national narratives of Anzac provided opportunities for political elites like Hawke to convincingly employ Anzac as an ideograph and inscribe the day with new meaning. This process had profound continuing effects for the marking of Anzac Day that demonstrate the politically limiting effects of restorative justice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 1981 Australian Financial System Inquiry, known as the Campbell Committee, is widely seen as the start of the reform movement of the 1980s and 1990s. Accounts of its origins have been dominated by a debate about which policy actor can take credit. This paper utilises cabinet and Reserve Bank archives to reassess the origins of the Campbell Committee. The inquiry had its origins in an earlier attempt by the Whitlam government to take federal control of the regulation for non-bank financial institutions and the building society crisis of the mid-1970s. In its response to these political and economic challenges we can identify the moment in which the Fraser cabinet turned towards market-based reform. The political decisions made in the context of crisis set the path for regulatory change in subsequent decades, particularly in the area of prudential regulation, where we have seen regulatory consolidation and expansion rather than ‘deregulation’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, I challenge the conventional view that trade agreements act as a major constraint on Australia’s industry policy options. Through a comparison with South Korea – a country with similar trade obligations to Australia – I find that the Australian government retains significant room to move in the industry policy sphere. However, Australian policy-makers appear far less willing than their foreign counterparts to use that space. To explain Australia’s comparative industry policy in-activism, I move beyond broad-brush explanations centred on ‘liberal ideology’ to explore the ideational, institutional and structural obstacles to the pursuit of a more proactive industry policy approach on the part of Australian policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides an overview of Australia’s experience with trade and industry policy since Federation in light of the dilemmas facing a small, rich, remote, resource-based economy. It focuses on the attempt to diversify away from a dependence on the export of primary products and to move beyond – while still also continuing to exploit – the country’s natural comparative advantage. It examines the rise and decline, purpose and effects, of protectionism; moments of experimentation with interventionist industry policy; and effects of the mining boom. In doing so, it considers Australia’s particular economic circumstances and factor endowments in light of competing notions of comparative advantage and the appropriate role of government in promoting economic development and competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides an overview of the development of agricultural policy in Australia from a complex web of government intervention in the sector in the first half of the 20th century to the deregulation of the past 40 years. It highlights the close interrelationship between agricultural policy and manufacturing policy as well as the areas in which agricultural policy has been distinctive, namely the largely bipartisan nature of agricultural policy development and the strong cultural attachment across the community to farmers in general and family farming in particular. Recent policy debates suggest that agricultural policy will remain a sector apart in terms of the broadly bipartisan nature of policy and the ongoing influence of non-economic considerations. Australia will retain its comparative advantage in agricultural exports into the future and policymakers will need to continue to balance policies that support the economic performance of the sector with those that reflect community expectations of support for the farming community more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Albert Hirschman's rhetoric of reaction is a potentially powerful typology of the arguments made by both proponents and opponents of reform (1991.The rhetoric of reaction: Perversity, futility, jeopardy. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). However, scholars have identified a number of gaps in the typology, in particular that it has struggled to explain the lines of rhetoric associated with disputed empirical evidence. This paper reviews Hirschman's typology before applying it to the contentious municipal amalgamation debates currently unfolding in New South Wales, Australia. We then examine the lines of attack open to progressives and reactionaries on the basis of empirical data. We conclude that the use of empirical data opens new lines of rhetoric for both ‘progressives’ and ‘reactionaries’ generally, but that both information costs and complexity significantly affect the timing and penetration of the arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The political debate concerning the introduction of new national resource rent tax in Australia between 2010 and 2014 provides significant insights into the Australian political system. This collection of papers systematically examines the broader political consequences of the mining tax debate including the power of mining interests and the strategic errors made by the Rudd and Gillard governments. These analyses highlight the institutional limits of the Australian state and the political challenges associated with future economic reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The place of political theory in AJPS has historically been a fairly marginal one, partly because Australia does not seem to have a strong national tradition of political theorizing. This is thought to be a function of living in a nation that never produced a great political theorist and was born neither in revolution or utopianism. Yet, although there has been a marked absence of high theory or exegetically-inclined history of ideas over the life of the journal, theorists have responded by contributing work that usefully illuminates applied problems with theoretical insight. Further, it may be the case that there is a peculiarly Australian style of political theory that is pragmatic and self-consciously embedded within our institutions and political culture. The paper explores this and other means by which Australian theorists have adapted in order to retain a presence within the journal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of ‘compacts’ between government and the ‘third’ or ‘not-for-profit’ sector is intimately linked to the comprehensive transformation of the welfare state. The first compacts in the United Kingdom in 1998 spawned similar policy instruments in other jurisdictions, including Australia. In 2006 the Labor opposition led by Kevin Rudd undertook to repair a ‘broken’ relationship between the federal government and the not-for-profit sector. The National Compact, launched in March 2010, was an initial step in a bumpy policy journey. Prime Minister Rudd was replaced in June 2010 by Julia Gillard, who portrayed the National Compact as the ‘foundation stone’ of a broader reform agenda. Although dogged by political instability, Gillard pursued ground-breaking reforms in the not-for-profit policy space. These reforms are now threatened with repeal by the Coalition government elected in 2013. This paper attempts to explain why Labor's reform agenda appears set to unravel. 政府与“第三”即“非盈利”部门之间的协定，与福利国家的综合转型密切相关。自1998年英国出现首个协定以来，类似的政策工具在其他地界像澳大利亚便如雨后春笋。2006年陆克文领导的工党反对派修补了联邦政府与非盈利部门之间破损的关系。2010年启动的国家协定在磕磕绊绊的政策旅行中迈出了第一步。2010年6月陆克文总理卸任，茱莉亚杰拉德接任，她将国家协定描绘成广泛改革议程的“基石”。尽管困于政治动荡，杰拉德还是在非盈利政策空间里进行了开拓性改革。这些改革有可能被2013年当选的联盟党政府所废除。本文探讨了工党的改革计划为什么会开始瓦解。 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]