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Whilst often being overshadowed by debate surrounding personal income and consumption taxes, the Howard government has also devoted significant resources to reviewing and reforming business and capital taxation. This paper provides an overview of the Ralph Review of Business Taxation and the Howard government's mixed record when it came to the implementation of the Ralph reforms. Having documented the subsequent changes in corporate income, capital gains and superannuation taxation, the paper analyses their economic impact. The paper concludes with an assessment of the longer term political significance of these changes and asks whether the concessional taxation of capital that has occurred under the Howard government represents a fundamental shift in the basis of Australian taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Funding of local government systems in Australia has been falling relative to other tiers of government for the past 30 years with various adverse consequences, especially the decline of local government infrastructure. This paper seeks to explain this phenomenon by drawing on two relatively new theoretical strands in the political economy literature; the Australian theory of local government failure and the Wittman model of democratic efficiency. Three explanations are assessed: a traditional public finance perspective, Australian local government failure, and the institutional efficiency of democratic preference revelation. A secondary aim of the paper is to evaluate the implications of the Wittman model for the local government failure paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Australian governments are facing some confusion about public sector accountability. This paper argues that the opaque nature of accountability which persists is the result of changes being wrought, separately and together, by a number of macro factors of which public sector reform and corruption inquiries are but two. This explanation is developed by an examination of some fifteen specific issues which are symptomatic of the lack of transparency in Australian public sector accountability, and simultaneously, contribute to it. The paper contends that clarity is likely to emerge only slowly as gaps and anomalies are recognised and gradually remedied. The paper seeks to contribute to the process by offering a definition of accountability and an outline of several different types of accountability frameworks now operating in Australian governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the impact of affirmative action, equal opportunity and gender equity programs on the lives of Australian women have been explored in a number of areas, state interventions related to sport have received scant attention from public policy analysts. This paper examines how the Australian Sports Commission has framed its gender equity policy in the mutually reinforcing hegemonic discourses of masculinity and corporate managerialism. It is argued that the Commission's articulation of gender equity policy in terms of 'market-oriented individualism' is both constituted by, and constitutive of, the shift from a 'patriarchal-welfare state' to a 'patriarchal-managerial state' in Australia. The paper also provides an example of the tensions between bureaucratic and feminist discourses in the state sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the applicability of class-coalitional explanations to broad patterns of public policy in Australia at the turn of the century and during the Great Depression. It argues that this approach, with its strong comparative emphasis, does shed light on the 'historic compromise' between capital and labour established after Federation and provides some useful hypotheses about Australia's failure to 'break with orthodoxy' in the 1930s. In particular, it provides an important comparative framework for understanding the nature and role of the labour movement in Australian history, and a corrective to prevailing interpretations. The paper also argues, though, that evidence from the Australian case calls into question simple factor-endowment models of political change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper seeks to review the long-tum policy choices Australia faces if full employment is to be restored. Using cross-national data for the period 1972-88, it identifies the variety of mutes taken to mass unemployment and full employment. It then discusses the diverse policy strategies underlying mutes to full employment and examines the possibility and desirability of their adoption in Australia [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study of regimes has become an increasingly important feature of empirical studies of the bases of world order. Much research has focused on the dynamics and internal working of regimes in a number of different policy areas. The determinants of the approaches of states to regimes, however, have been relatively neglected. Using findings from Australian and Canadian approaches to the international environmental regime, this paper explores seven sets of factors that are argued to be crucial to understanding responses: the ecological-economic milieu of states, the developmental attributes of a regime, bureaucratic politics within national governments, the influence of governmental structures such as federalism, interest group activity, the foreign policy orientations of states, and the regime capabilities of states. Regimes are an enduring feature of international society, but neglect of the complexity and variety of national approaches can lead to ineffectual policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s, the adoption of new public management (NPM) as a management philosophy has translated into multiple waves of reform in the employment services sector in Australia, namely Working Nation (1994–96), Job Network (JN: 1996–2009) and Job Services Australia (JSA: 2009–present). Each wave has sought to improve the preceding policy. In this article, we examine changes implemented during the Rudd/Gillard Labor governments. Using government policy documents and survey data from frontline employment services staff, we compare JSA to JN against five benchmarks. Our data indicate that JSA has generated modest improvement. JSA is also a system with less emphasis on strong forms of sanctioning. Our combined data suggest that policy actors operating under NPM conditions are indeed able to influence specific aspects of frontline practice, but they must spend great effort to do so and must accept new imperfections as a consequence. 1990年代以来，新型公共管理被作为一种管理哲学而被接受。这导致了就业服务部门的数次改革浪潮，即工作国（1994—96）、工作网（1996—2009）、澳大利亚工作服务（2009至今）。每波浪潮都力图改良此前的政策。本文考察了陆克文/吉拉德工党执政时期的变革。作者根据政府的政策文件、一线就业服务机构员工的调查数据等等，在五个基准点上将澳大利亚工作服务与工作网做了对比。根据我们的资料，澳大利亚工作服务这个系统带来的改进最小，也不大注重强有力的制裁。我们认为，实施新型公共管理的政策制定方的确能影响一线实践的某些方面，但他们还要花大力气，还要接受往后新的不圆满。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the course of a decade in office since 1996, the Howard government has pursued a policy and a politics of fiscal responsibility. Moving the budget out of deficit, retiring the Commonwealth government's accumulated debt and running continued surpluses to hedge against future demands have been the main expressions of this policy. The virtuousness of this has been contrasted with the record of previous governments, in particular with the record of the Keating government, which left office after 4 years of economic sunshine with an undisclosed deficit of $10 billion on top of a greatly swollen public debt. In addition, the Howard government has staked a claim to being a government of tax reform - having reformed the indirect tax system by introducing the GST in 2000, and having reformed the direct tax system by making a number of accompanying and following adjustments to the personal income tax. The economic and financial data suggest, however, that the Coalition's budgetary achievements must be credited much more to good fortune than to good government. The challenge - unprecedented in a generation - has been of governing in good times, indeed of governing in extraordinarily good times. At the same time, tax reform has been much more modest than many of the Howard government's market-oriented supporters would have liked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community consultation is widely employed in contemporary Australia as a means of improving the formulation and implementation of public policy. However, little is known about the optimal expenditure of effort required for any given consultation. This article develops a rational choice model of community consultation that seeks to encapsulate the major elements involved in optimising consultation effort. The framework is particularly useful for understanding and explaining why actual community consultation processes may be sub-optimal. The rational choice model is then applied to the Living Murray debate over water resources in the Murray-Darling Basin of Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, e-government is continuously re-defining service boundaries. While this may be good in the case of transactional interactions, for example the online submission of tax returns, it is less clear that interpersonal services, such as working closely with the long-term unemployed, are best delivered digitally. We consider the impact of social services digitisation on vulnerable communities drawing on an analysis of remote Aboriginal communities. Digital uptake affords great opportunities, but it also carries risks. Some communities have no digital infrastructure and in certain cases traditional face-to-face services have been curtailed, leaving those not online with reduced assistance. We find that concerns about the ‘digital divide’ are well founded. Problems generated by e-government flow across boundaries and appear left to the third sector to resolve with the state playing an even more diminished role in the lives of disadvantaged citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments since the 1980s have reshaped the public sector by selling public businesses and other assets, and by introducing competition in the supply of taxpayer-funded services. Explanations for these new directions have focused on political ideologies about the proper role of government, and economic arguments about business efficiency, while noting an international trend towards diffusion of these policy ideas. However, the methods for achieving significant policy shifts have often been overlooked. This study examines the case of Queensland, highlighting a wider range of reform factors, including bureaucratic advice and commission of audit recommendations. 1980年代以来各国政府通过出售公共产业和其他资产，通过在纳税人出资的服务业引入竞争而改造了公共部门。对这类新方向的解释都集中在政府职能以及企业效率的政治意识形态一面，以及造成这类政策思想扩散的国际潮流。不过，他们都忽视了造成如此重大政策转变的方法。本文考察了昆士兰的案例，讨论了更广泛的改革因素，包括官僚咨询以及审计委员建议等等。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a reasonable community expectation that ministerial staff who enjoy the privilege of working at the interface of politics and public administration in Australia are subject to appropriate accountability measures. The key questions are what measures currently exist to hold ministerial staff accountable, how effective are such measures, and how could accountability be improved. While descriptions of an ‘accountability black hole’ for ministerial staff are overstated, the measures now in place do not operate uniformly across Australian jurisdictions, have on occasion developed in an ad hoc fashion and are sometimes uncertain in their application. Such circumstances highlight the need for reform, which may potentially encompass both accountability mechanisms directly applicable to ministerial staff, as well as measures that operate more broadly and apply to those with whom ministerial staff interact. 在政治与公共管理交合处工作的澳大利亚内阁工作人员需要 接受适当的问责，这是一种合情合理的社会期待。关键的问题在于目前都有哪些手段能对他们问责，这些手段能否改进。设计问责方法的关键因素是内阁工作人员特殊角色和责任，其不同于非政治的公务员，也不同于作为决策者并直接参加公共辩论的大臣。说内阁工作人员为“问责黑洞”未免言过其实，但现在的那些方法在所有澳大利亚司法辖区并未统一运行，有时以特事特办的方式存在，往往在应用上含糊不定。这种状况说明需要改革。改革可以囊括直接适用于内阁工作人员的问责机制，以及涵盖更广、适用于与他们打交道的那些人的办法。 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Various initiatives enhancing Commonwealth power relative to the States have been a feature of the Howard government that has surprised many observers. These developments need to be understood in the context of longer-term political, financial and regulatory changes that are challenging established features of Commonwealth-State relations. The Howard government's allocation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue has offered the prospect of greater State-level financial and policy autonomy. But the Howard government has also inherited, and in some policy domains has significantly enhanced, the further development of a Commonwealth-State regime best described as 'regulatory federalism'. Its effect, in contrast to the effect of the GST initiative, is to constrain the States' scope for policy autonomy. A similar impact is emerging from the Commonwealth's efforts to ensure that its conditional grants to the States better serve Commonwealth policy goals and priorities. And a raft of Commonwealth initiatives is bypassing the States altogether. Although the Howard government has clearly enhanced the role of the Commonwealth, it remains constrained by aspects of the federal system that are structurally entrenched and that continue to make intergovernmental collaboration, rather than confrontation, a sensible strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the distinctive values promulgated by successive Howard governments have been extensively analysed, less attention has been paid to the manner of their incorporation into policy. This article maps the ways in which policy processes were managed to achieve values-change in the Howard decade (1996-2006), focusing on the policy subsystem at the apex of government. Three case studies are investigated in detail: the development of welfare to work policies; strategies to combat illicit drugs; and industrial relations legislation. We show how Prime Minister Howard's leadership was built around a highly personalised system of political control, based on the seizing of opportunities as they arose; the engineering of policy networks; and the alignment of key resources such as the Cabinet Office; the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and senior bureaucratic leadership with the Prime Minister's policy priorities. We show that this system made possible very rapid policy development, but was also associated with deficits in policy-related research and with a degree of implementation risk whereby minimal consultation had occurred. Some comparisons are drawn with governments of the Hawke-Keating period, which were more technocratic in approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Howard decade, numerous controversies emerged in the Indigenous Affairs portfolio: the 'ten point plan' on native title; the question of a formal apology to the stolen generations; and the abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). Underpinning these contested policy developments is a common issue - the rights of Indigenous peoples within the Australian nation. The Coalition government has consistently opposed measures that give recognition to Indigenous rights. The previous policy of self-determination was rejected on the grounds that it has 'implications of separate nations or governments' that are unacceptable (OATSIA 2003a). ATSIC was dismissed because it was deemed a failure, but also because it was said to represent a form of separatism that divided the nation. This was done without consultation or negotiation with Indigenous representatives, imposing a vision of national unity by unilateral decision. This article documents key developments in the portfolio and explores assumptions implicit in the government's rhetoric - that recognition of Indigenous rights and self-determination are divisive and inherently at odds with nation cohesion and unity. In the final section, the ideas of several theorists are outlined to suggest that other approaches are possible - that rather than ignoring or suppressing the demands of Indigenous minorities for recognition, national unity is best served by political accommodation of the special status of such groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interaction between religion and politics is varied, complex and often heated. It involves constitutional issues, voting behaviour, party composition and electoral competition, faith-based public administration, advocacy and lobbying by churches, mutual criticism by churches and the state, and the public presentation of religious values. This article is a comprehensive mapping and discussion of a range of the major religion and politics issues in Australia since the election of the Howard government in 1996. This has been a decade in which religion has had a higher political profile than at any time since the 1950s Labor Split. One feature has been the rise to prominence of Catholics in the Coalition parties, whereas they featured heavily on the other side during the Labor Split. It is a more intellectually interesting decade than the 1950s because the influence of religion has crossed denominational and faith boundaries from the mainstream Christian churches to the newer Evangelical Christian churches and to non-Christian religions such as Islam. The overall impact of religious intervention appears to have favoured the Coalition parties, but many unanswered questions remain about the motivation and impact of these developments, and there are numerous opportunities for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the conceptual difficulties and empirical realities politicians, public policy and poll following. Overview of the importance of public opinion to political parties; Impact of basing political strategies either too much or too little on public opinion; Relationship between polls and democracy; Influence of public opinion on the platforms of political leaders in Australia.

While rural and farm women have a long history of interaction with the Australian state, it is only recently that Commonwealth government departments have established specifically dedicated policy machinery to address their needs. What is notable is that this has occurred at a time when other gender equity infrastructure is being disbanded. This article examines this anomaly. To begin, it documents the material and discursive changes in terms of equity for women which have occurred since the election of the Howard government in 1996. Following this, it details the emergence of a state agenda for rural and farm women in Australia and explains some of the definitive elements of this agenda. In the final section, the article gives attention to explaining why equity for farm and rural women has been emphasised by government in a period marked by the erosion of state-sponsored equity initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on the article "The Proliferation of Identity Politics in Australia," by Elizabeth Fells, published in the March 2003 issue of the "Australian Journal of Political Science." Emphasis on the author's use of ministerial portfolios as an indicator of government responses to identity politics; Description of the Women's Electoral Lobby submission of 1974 to the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration.

Governmental institutions increasingly use consultation procedures in an attempt to augment legitimacy and improve the quality of democratic decision making. However, there has been little systematic academic consideration of the ways in which the different consultation methods relate to democratic decision making. This article examines who is invited to participate in the consultative procedures and the role they are expected to play. Differences between the general public, community of fate and associations or groups are discussed, as are the methods of deciding which person will speak for the group. Three different roles of group representatives are discussed: information provision, contestation, and synthesis. The conclusions are illustrated in a matrix which allows a closer consideration of consultation procedures in relation to various aspects of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian Labor Party has always been, and remains, a complex entity which encompasses both centralist/national and decentralist/federal interests and values. The common interpretation that the party has been historically 'frustrated' by federalism but is now 'reconciled' with it thus exaggerates both the frustration and the reconciliation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine the controversial questions of whether or not partisanship and electoral motives shape the fiscal policies of Australian governments. I also extend the partisan model of policy choice for the Australian case. Specifically, using time-series data fro the financial years 1962-63 through 1989-90, I explore partisan and electoral influences on the overall fiscal stance and the personal income transfer payments of the Commonwealth government. Results indicate that, net of the influences of inertia in the policy process and of variations in economic forces, partisanship and elections play significant roles in determining both overall fiscal policy and income transfer outlays. Analyses reveal that fiscal policies become more expansionary across the electoral cycle while Labor and coalition governments have large but diminishing partisan effects on policy over their terms in office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines several shortcomings in Australian structures and practices by presenting a normative model of intergovernmental relations. One particular shortcoming is the disjunction between the interdependence implicit in the Australian federation, and the extent to which this interdependence is recognized through the medium of intergovernmental relations. Australia's fiscal federalism creates rather than addresses problems of intergovernmental relations while leaving untouched significant regulatory problems.