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The article discusses the political situation in the Australian Capital Territory during the second half of 2019. Topics covered include the ways that both the Andrew Barr-led Labor government and the Alistair Coe-led Liberal Opposition are positioning themselves for the election in October 2020, investigations into the Territory government land deals, and controversies surrounding the light rail project and the legalization of cannabis.

The article discusses the political situation in the Northern Territory during the first half of 2020. Topics covered include the resignation of Speaker Kezia Purick after an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) finding of corrupt conduct, the measures taken by the state government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Federal Court's decision to overturn the 2011 live cattle export ban imposed by then Agriculture Minister Senator Joe Ludwig.

The article discusses the political situation in South Australia during the first half of 2020. Topics covered include the measures taken by the government of Premier Steven Marshall in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, efforts to lift the state's sixteen-year moratorium on the growing of genetically modified (GM) crops, and the closure of three suburban Service SA centres offering over-the-counter access to state government transactions.

The article discusses the political situation in the Australian Capital Territory during the first half of 2020. Topics covered include the state government's response to the bushfire crisis, Premier Andrew Barr's policies to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, and controversy surrounding the legalization of cannabis and the light rail project.

The article discusses the political situation in Western Australia during the first half of 2020. Topics covered include the measures taken by the government of Premier Mark McGowan in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the state government's failure to re-appoint John McKechnie as Commissioner of the Corruption and Crime Commission, and the trial of alleged Claremont serial killer Bradley Robert Edwards.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have campaigned for reform to the Australian state for generations. Over the last decade, debate over constitutional recognition has assumed mainstream prominence as a series of parliamentary and expert bodies designed to raise awareness of the need for change, propose options for that change, and build a community consensus around those proposals, have been established. This article assesses the five public processes undertaken between 2010 and 2017. It explains that constitutional reform has been hampered by state ambivalence towards the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). However, it argues that that same state ambivalence created space for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to eventually take control of the debate, reframe it along their own priorities, and re‐energise the movement for constitutional recognition. Even if prospects for a referendum remain uncertain, the Uluru Statement from the Heart has succeeded in building community consensus for a clear proposal because the UNDRIP informed and influenced its development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the political situation in Vicrotia during the first half of 2020. Topics covered include the formation of Fire Services Victoria (FSV) authority by Premier Daniel Andrews to deal with the bushfire crisis, the measures taken by the state government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the strong community support obtained by the state government for its most repressive policies to contain the coronavirus.

The article discusses the political situation in New South Wales during the first half of 2020. Topics covered include the relief package announced by Premier Gladys Berejiklian in response to the bushfire crisis, the measures taken by the state government in answer to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the introduction of legislation to deal with the downsides of the massive increase in high-rise development in Sydney.

The article discusses the political situation in Australia during the first half of 2020. Topics covered include the government's response to the bushfire crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, and the creation of a national cabinet that met frequently to coordinate policy options. Also discussed is the resignation of Richard Di Natale as leader of the Greens party.

The decision to go to war in Australia remains the prerogative of the Executive. The lack of parliamentary authorisation of perhaps the most significant decision a democracy can make has seen sustained, but unsuccessful, efforts to reform legislation. In the wake of the costly invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, repeated calls for legislative reform of Australia's war powers have failed to find traction amongst Coalition and Australian Labor Party (ALP) leadership. Lamenting the lack of transparency and accountability in the current system, those favouring legislative reform would see authorisation of combat missions placed in the hands of Parliament. However, given the lack of support from either of the major parties, any legislative reform remains unlikely. Given this impasse, this article argues that a compromise option, in the form of a new war‐powers convention, may be a small step towards democratising the decision of going to war. While not legally binding, this constitutional convention would represent an agreement by the major parties that overseas combat operations will be properly debated in Parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In late 2019 and early 2020, bushfires consumed vast swathes of land across southern parts of Australia. The scale and intensity of the fires was unprecedented and the extent of destruction was without parallel. This article asks to what extent anthropology's focus on culture and cultural processes can inform our understanding of the complex politics generated by a situation such as this. It is argued that local people, who were directly affected by the fires, and the political elite, who commented on them from a distance, had different understandings of – and attached different meanings to – these extraordinary events. These cultural differences were especially evident on the question of the extent to which climate change was responsible for generating this environmental disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines actions taken by the Australian government led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison following the election in May 2019. The parliament was recalled in July primarily to pass the Coalition's budget-announced tax package that took effect from June 30. The government commissioned more than 70 reviews across a number of policy areas, including retirement incomes, defense, nuclear energy and family law.

The article discusses the historical and conceptual framework of race and its role in the development of national identity, migration policy and refugee politics in Australia. Topics discussed include impact of white nationalism on the nation's migration policy or the movement of non-white population in and around Australia, the colonial foundations of Australian whiteness, and the conflict between white politics and the contemporary multicultural and Indigenous policies.

Is the Australian Labor Party (ALP) one party, or eight? Academic accounts of the ALP throughout its history have emphasised the importance of state‐based policy‐making and organisation as evidence that the "life of the party" occurs within state and territory branches. However, over the last three decades, changes to the national conference and constitution, the increasing prominence of national leaders and the professionalisation of campaigning practices have arguably created the conditions for a far more centralised organisation, raising the question of whether, in 2019, there is anything distinctive about the ALP state and territory branches beyond the jurisdictions in which they operate. In this article, we investigate the distinctiveness of state Labor branches in terms of their formal organisational diversity and the characteristics and attitudes of their supporters. Using data from an original survey of Australian party supporters conducted in 2016, as well as undertaking an analysis of formal party rules, we show that the ALP exhibits a high degree of organisational uniformity across its branches, and supporters of the party in all states and territories very closely resemble each other. We conclude that even though the party maintains a federal structure it is possible to study its supportership and formal structure as a national organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the concept of labor in the Australian Labor Party's administration of state governments in Australia. Topics discussed include analysis of the ideological and policy profile of state Labor governments, policy mechanisms of state Labor governments based on a framework adopted from policy experts Armando Barrientos and Martin Powell, and the comparative profile of modern state-level social democracy in Australia.

In Australia, two‐and‐a‐half party systems are common with the Liberal and National parties, usually needing to collaborate to form governments. In Queensland, the 2008 merger of two of these state parties to create the Liberal National Party (LNP) created instead a two‐party system. This review examines the forces for the merger and prospects for the continuation of the LNP, the likelihood of change as a result of the Queensland merger in the remaining two‐and‐a‐half party systems, and how the drivers of this merger compare with those observed in studies of other non‐Australian party and electoral systems. Pressures and conditions for a merger similar to those in other, mostly European systems, were evident in the case of the LNP. The particular structure of the pre‐merger party competition and relationships was, however, a likely factor in the merger in that two collaborating parties could avoid a contested switch in party seniority. This aspect, unlikely to occur in other Australian party systems, combined with the very limited success of the LNP in gaining and holding government since the merger, does not suggest an imperative for further mergers in other Australian systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Australia's successful campaign for a non‐permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) (2008‐12) and its subsequent term on the Council (2013‐14) both encouraged and impacted on the country's engagement with Africa. Drawing on extensive interviews with senior Australian politicians and government officials with intimate knowledge of the country's campaign for the UNSC and its time on the Council, as well as with senior African diplomats, the article contributes new knowledge on how Canberra campaigned to secure African UN votes and how it engaged with the Council's Africa‐dominated agenda. The article concludes by evaluating the legacy of this period of high engagement for both ongoing Australia‐Africa relations and Australia's new campaign for a UNSC seat during the 2029‐30 term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section offers news briefs on politics in Australia as of June 2019. The coalition government of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has experienced disunity. The government has introduced a budget which aims to appease voters and begin to repair the damage caused by the political leadership crisis in 2018. Politician and businessman Clive Palmer has announced his decision to run as a Queensland candidate in the Senate.

The article discusses political issues concerning the Commonwealth of Australia as of 2019. Topics explored include the resignation of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his succession by Treasurer Scott Morrison, the contribution of the Australian Liberal Party to the replacement of Turnbull, and the disclosure of information regarding the planned raids on Australian Workers' Union (AWU) offices by the Australian Federal Police.

This special section builds on Planning the Post‐Political City—Part 1 to examine if and how planning is showing signs of a post‐democratic turn taking place in Australian cities. In Part 1, we presented a collection of papers examining Australia as a post‐political landscape, exploring the new ways in which Australian publics are resisting dominant neoliberal practices and logics of growth and, in doing so, are intervening in decision‐making practices to assert new forms of power and participation. In Part 2, we show how participatory practices continue to evolve. We use this brief editorial to ask a foundational question: have those implicated in the governance and management of Australian cities embarked on a post‐democratic path? As they are presented with new exclusionary and managerial governance systems, the public's participation suggests at the very least that post‐political and post‐democratic conditions are neither immutable nor inevitable. However, more democratic forms of governance rely on a rich array of activist types and approaches requiring greater institutional support in order to challenge Australia's post‐political condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policies that encourage the aspirations of disabled people for mainstream employment might be an effective way to increase their workforce participation rate. This study aims to determine which people in sheltered employment aspire to a job beyond their current sheltered employment job. We asked 64 people with sheltered employment jobs about their workplace and job fit, their intentions to stay in their current job and their future job aspirations. The key finding is that perceptions of fit indirectly and adversely affect aspirations via intention to stay. Participants who felt they fitted planned to keep working at their sheltered workplace, but a stronger intention to stay made it less likely that they could identify an alternative to sheltered employment. These results were not influenced by age or the time spent in sheltered employment. Policy should therefore support people in sheltered employment to develop realistic job aspirations. Helping disabled people to identify opportunities beyond sheltered employment can avoid complacency and free up sheltered job opportunities for other disabled people. But policy changes are required to leverage sheltered employment as a first step for disabled people to develop mainstream job aspirations and facilitate transitioning beyond sheltered employment job options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents addiction-related news briefs on topics including opposition to the Australian coalition government's plan to implement a drug testing trial for welfare payment recipients in Mandurah, Western Australia. According to the article, criticism of the Filipino government's drug war has increased in the wake of the police shooting death of a schoolboy named Kian Delos Santos. It states that New York, New York Mayor Bill De Blasio signed a package of tobacco control laws in 2017.

In the face of the hard-line approach to asylum-seekers currently being taken by both the major political parties in Australia, alienated cosmopolitans have been increasingly inclined to disidentify with the Australian nation and declare 'not in my name'. Although sympathetic both to the cosmopolitan position and to these acts of principled dissent, I express reservations about such an approach on the grounds that it distances the cosmopolitan elite from the democratic mass and inclines towards irresponsibility. Drawing on Socrates as an exemplar, I investigate how citizens with cosmopolitan sensibilities might resist injustice on universal moral grounds without being either condemned by or exiled from their local political community. Ultimately, I argue in favour of an embedded cosmopolitanism that engages critically with the political ethos and calls on citizens to take responsibility for protecting the state in its ideal image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most widely-endorsed norms in Australian politics is the requirement for bipartisanship in the management of defence and security policy. This norm is assumed to lead to good policy creation, foster political unity, and protect those who implement national policy (particularly the military). The paper argues that evidence for all three of these claims is overstated. In addition, the effects of the norm are often counter-productive and even harmful to the conduct and management of Australian policy. The paper concludes by arguing that the norm of bipartisanship for Australian defence and security policy should be abandoned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010, Australia finally introduced maternity leave, making it one of the last OECD nations to do so. Yet this policy had been announced by the Keating Government some sixteen years earlier, only to be watered down and then ultimately scuppered by subsequent governments. How, then, do we make sense of the rise and fall of this policy in the 1990s? This paper examines this question, arguing that while effective mobilisation by women in the labour movement was crucial to placing this issue on the Keating Government's policy agenda, the continued dominance of a male breadwinner model ultimately served to provide powerful impediments to policy implementation. The paper draws on interviews with key actors and analysis of policy debate to make this case, employing the concepts of policy windows and path dependency to make sense of the opportunities and impediments to policy change respectively. While an important and neglected story of maternity leave policy in Australia, this analysis has important implications for understanding policy-making, policy trajectory and even gender roles in Australian politics and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies examining opposition transition to government processes and planning usually emphasise the responsibility of oppositions as a legislative institution and the role of party leaders. However, such approaches place too much emphasis on notions of responsible opposition and party leaders. They de-emphasise the importance of partisan considerations that shape transition planning or how party organisations have attempted to assert control over parliamentary parties. Drawing on archival materials, policy documents, and elite interviews, this study examines both public and internal transition to government strategies undertaken by the Liberal Party of Australia during their opposition years (1983-1996). The paper finds that while party leaders became more important over time, the party organisation's involvement remained significant. The Liberal Party transition planning focused primarily on cabinet processes, Australian Public Service (APS) organisation, particularly the senior bureaucratic level, and selecting political staff. In so doing, the Liberal Party anticipated many of the Hawke government's 1987 reforms to the APS. The Liberal Party was motivated by its desire to restructure the machinery and culture of government and to allocate sufficient political staff resources to government. Its aim was to better equip the party to achieve its political and ideological goals when next in government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia remains one of the last liberal democracies to retain a property franchise at the local government level. This particular feature is both the result of historical particularities and contemporary political arrangements. This article analyses the property franchise in the City of Melbourne, the capital of the Australian State of Victoria, based on democratic theory and an empirical study. It illustrates the tensions between the democratic principles of representation and political equality in defining structures for representation at the local government level. The authors suggest that a more nuanced interpretation of representation can be adopted at a local level based on territorial residency rather than legal citizenship. Despite this, based on analysis of both electoral and non-electoral mechanisms, the property franchises are found to be anachronistic and indefensible from a democratic perspective and unrelated to the status of capital city. The article concludes that, at a local level, deliberative democracy holds the promise to better represent various interests, including property interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The announcement in January 2015 that Prince Philip had been chosen to receive an Australian knighthood (an honour which itself had been controversially revived the previous year) sparked a fury of debate about honours, and about the continuance of a British connection in Australia's national life. Such debates were not new, echoing earlier arguments about honours as a national or imperial symbol. Through two related case studies - the Australian honours system and the Australian of the Year award - this article explores the politics of national recognition in 1970s and 1980s Australia. We consider both the politics involved in the creation and alteration of awards by which individual achievement and service are recognised by the nation, and the politics involved in imagining and recognising an Australian nation as expressed in those awards. We argue that these two institutions were more than a means to acknowledge hard work or sacrifice; they were also significant sites for contests over the nature of Australia's post-imperial identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change sceptics are known for their resistance to proactive climate response policies, especially policies aimed at restricting greenhouse gas emissions. It is often assumed that scepticism about the science behind climate change would lead directly to outright rejection of all proactive climate policies aimed at mitigating emissions and adapting to climate-induced changes already under way. This article demonstrates the variability among the climate policy views of seven well-known Australian climate change sceptics in the period 2007-2012. Using the lens of frame-analysis, we unpack some key sceptic rationales and narratives. The analysis shows that sceptics share a master frame that privileges individualist-libertarian-progress-social order values, which are thus likely to conflict with the values implicit in conventional climate policy remedies. The analysis also shows that sceptical pre-occupations diverge at more detailed framing levels, with various practical concerns and fears often at the centre of sceptical argumentation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the Gorton government's tentative, but significant role in reshaping Australia's approach to overseas investment, focusing on the role of the Prime Minister himself. Prime Minister Gorton and his Cabinet ultimately accepted the need to pursue a more overt form of economic nationalism for political gain. This provided a basis for subsequent governments to offer more direct, national government intervention in foreign investment decision-making to the Australian polity. Historical accounts and more recent assessments are drawn on to make this case and point to the legacy of Gorton and his government in the political management of foreign investment in Australia. The approach to foreign investment that emerged during Gorton's government demonstrated to subsequent governments the worth of developing a calibrated response that appeared to address populist concerns while still enabling substantive and increasing investment inflows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights political issues in the Commonwealth of Australia from January-June 2016. Topics discussed include forced resignation of Human Services Minister Stuart Robert after report revealed that he had gone to China to secure a trade deal between mining companies, China Minmetals and Nimrod Resources, and ultimatum given by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to parliament in reintroducing the industrial relation bills for a second time.

Aims To estimate the amount of alcohol and other drug (AOD) treatment provided and number of treatment recipients in Australia in 2011-12, and document an approach for future estimates internationally. Design. We combined multiple data sources to estimate the amount of treatment received: administrative data on AOD treatment funded by the Australian and state/territory governments, survey data from treatment providers and programme evaluation data. The various data sources were reconciled, using published studies of treatment activity, to estimate the unique number of treatment recipients. Setting. Treatment funded by the Australian and state/territory governments provided by general practitioners, specialist treatment services, hospitals, community- and hospital-based ambulatory mental health-care services and allied health professionals. Participants People receiving AOD treatment in the above settings. Measures. Annual quantum of AOD treatment (encounters, episodes, consultations) and the number of unique treatment recipients. Findings. In 2011/12 we estimated 1.6 million episodes of care, consultations or encounters, noting that measures of treatment are not comparable. Based on a range of conversion rates to account for people accessing treatment multiple times in that year, we estimated that the number of Australians in receipt of AOD treatment ranged from 202 168 to 232 419. This is an underestimate and subject to error. Using the upper range of the estimate, on average each treatment recipient made 4.7 visits to a general practitioner (GP) or allied health professional providing mental health services for AOD treatment, and had 1.2 treatment episodes with a specialist AOD treatment provider and/or hospital. Conclusions Between 202 168 and 232 419 Australians are estimated to have received alcohol and other drug treatment in 2011-12. The comprehensive approach used to calculate this estimate, combining multiple independent data sets across treatment settings and programmes, can be replicated in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of Australia's border protection policies have focused on attempts to deter the arrival of asylum seekers by boat. These include government 'messaging' in the hope this will influence the decision-making of would-be boat arrivals. This article outlines the findings of an exploratory study on the sources of information accessed by asylum seekers, prior to and during their boat journeys to Australia, about their destination country. The findings suggest that government media and Internet strategies focused on deterring asylum seekers are adopted without full regard to how information is sourced before and during these boat journeys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses several political developments in the Commonwealth of Australia between July 2015 and December 2015. According to the article, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott was forced to remove politician Bronwyn Bishop from her position as the Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives after Bishop failed to explain or apologize for abusing her travel entitlements. Australian Royal Commissioner Dyson Heydon's report on trade union governance and corruption is examined.

The article discusses several issues involving Australian foreign policy as of June 2016, and it mentions how various world leaders such as U.S. President Barack Obama telephoned politician Malcolm Turnbull to congratulate him on his election as the Prime Minister of Australia. Outgoing Prime Minister Tony Abbott's foreign policy style is mentioned, along with political leadership in Australia and Turnbull's five-nation tour which included stops in Indonesia and Germany.

Within the developed world, recent Australian political history is uniquely turbulent. This situation invokes indecision regarding investment decisions in both the real economy and the financial markets. This paper explores the relationship between uncertainty in Australian federal election polling and resulting financial market uncertainty. Empirical evidence suggests that increasing (decreasing) levels of uncertainty around the election result induce higher (lower) levels of uncertainty in financial markets. The effect is more pronounced as polling day approaches. Industry-level analysis suggests that the base materials sector is most significantly affected by election uncertainty in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author comments on the reform on the alcohol and drug treatment policy in Victoria. The topics discussed include the reforms carried out by the government since 1994 to 2014, the developments in the alcohol and other drug (AOD) treatment policy of the government, and the key drivers for the imposed reforms.

This article examines Australia's post-conflict reconstruction and development initiatives in Iraq following the intervention of 2003. Overall, it finds that Australia privileged the neo-liberal model of post-conflict state building by investing in projects that would enhance the capacity of the new Iraqi state, its key institutions and the private sector towards the imposition of a liberal democracy and a free-market economy. To demonstrate, this article documents the failures of the Australian government's stated aims to 'support agriculture' and 'support vulnerable populations' via interviews conducted in Iraq with rural farmers and tribal members and those working in, or the beneficiaries of, Iraq's disability sector. It concludes by noting that such failures are not only indicative of the inadequacy of the neo-liberal state building model, but also that these failures point the way forward for future post-conflict reconstruction and development projects which ought to be premised on a genuine and sustained commitment to addressing the needs of those made most vulnerable by war and regime change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measuring party support in Australia by constructing a 'two-party preferred' vote has had a profound effect, not only on the way political scientists, journalists, and politicians understand electoral 'swing' and predict electoral outcomes, but also on their understanding of the party system, their thinking about electoral fairness, and their views about which party or parties can legitimately claim government. This article traces the origins - the maternity as well as the paternity - of the 'two-party preferred'. It documents its spread from federal to state elections, even as voting systems in some states have switched from exhaustive preferential to optional preferential. It discusses its wide-ranging impact, and its implications for notions of electoral fairness and the legitimacy of election outcomes. It evaluates various criticisms of the concept - technical, pragmatic, and conceptual. And it notes the implications for marginal seat campaigning of the commonly observed 'uniform swing'- implications completely at odds with the idea that marginal seats matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the historical background and significance of the 1967 Australian Referendum particularly to the Aboriginal Australian population. Topics explored include the acknowledgment of Aboriginal People in the Australian census following the approval of the Referendum, results of the voting on the Referendum which amended the Australian Constitution, highlights of the Uluru Statement from the Heart issued at the May 2017 First Nations National Constitutional Convention, and the rejection of the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament by Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Participatory democracy was one of the core tenets of the New Left student movements that emerged in Australia in the 1960s. However, scant attention has been given to the idea within the literature on the New Left. This article examines an experiment in participatory democracy that took place in the Department of Philosophy at Sydney University in the 1970s. Following a series of strikes, the Philosophy department was split in two, with one half, the Department of General Philosophy, operating under a democratic constitution for six years from 1973 to 1979. This case study reveals a great deal about the intellectual history of the student New Left and the centrality of participatory democracy within it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the politics of telecommunications reform between 1967 and 1972, during which time Labor developed a new policy approach that included committing to reconstitute the Postmaster-General's Department as a relatively independent statutory authority. This represented the first serious attempt to reconcile the conflicting objectives of Australian policy: to provide affordable universal services by a government department expected to operate as a 'business-like' enterprise, and ended the political consensus about how national telecommunications should be delivered. The paper contrasts Labor's policy with the Liberal-Country government's more incremental approach; and highlights a significant public policy shift that has received insufficient attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to some other jurisdictions, in Australia, governments relying on minor parties and independents to enact policies and especially to hold power, are readily characterised by oppositions and commentators as unstable, even chaotic and an undesirable deviation from the stability of majority parliaments. The almost unremarked exception is the Liberals' long and frequent reliance on the National Party and its predecessors to form government. This paper explores the role of the National Party in minority Coalition governments and considers why this form of minority government attracts so little comment, noting the inter-party and intra-party systems and strategies that give the appearance of stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

These papers examine current Australian federalism from the perspectives of an academic and a practitioner. Both acknowledge the opportunities arising from the current White Paper process, as well as challenges in the face of substantial cuts of proposed funding from the Commonwealth to the States. They insist upon the need for renewed commitment to the idea of federalism, and the importance of sustainable fiscal arrangements within the federation. Challenges in Reforming Australian federalism reminds us of the kind of federalism operative in Australia - concurrent, not coordinate - and develops reform proposals accordingly. Ten Steps to a Better Federation offers a range of ideas from a former state premier, drawing on his experience as both a participant at Council of Australian Government (COAG) and, later, Chair of the COAG Reform Council. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultures and practices of the public service and academic researchers are very different. However, there are areas of common interest in policy and governance, and some potential for building closer relationships. Public servants make direct use of academic research only in exceptional circumstances. Nevertheless, there are other ways in which academic expertise can be useful and influential. This article surveys the international literature on the ways in which practitioners make use of external expertise, including academic research. It also considers whether the heightened interest in 'evidence-informed policy' might provide avenues for mutual influence between practitioners and academics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a great deal of work undertaken on employee performance management with the Australian Public Service (APS) over the last 4 years. The objective has been to focus upon achieving high performance rather than merely preventing poor performance. This refocus was adopted to reflect the increasing complexity of the work, a rise in the need for knowledge work, and escalations in the speed and frequency of change; all this within a context requiring a reduction in costs while still meeting the growing expectations of the public and government. This pair of papers reflects on where employee performance management has got to as a result of the work. Dr. Damian West from the Australian Public Service Commission identifies the continuing importance of effective employee performance management to the APS and public sectors more widely. He highlights the progress that has been made so far, demonstrating the importance of implementation of the process. He suggests that, now that a framework for assessing the potential for employee performance management processes has been established, accountability of the system implementation and adoption will become paramount. Professor Deborah Blackman, whilst echoing the real progress that has been made, suggests that for real improvement in performance management outcomes there needs to be a fundamental shift in thinking; not in terms of the processes or of ensuring compliance, but rather that organizations undertaking performance management need to be much clear as to the strategic direction such a process is going to support. She suggests that there has been too much emphasis on having a system and not enough on determining what such a system is for. When the papers are combined, it can be seen that much progress has been made in terms of the reorientation towards high performance and how to support organizations to work towards this. The next step, for there to be real outcome improvements, is for organizations to be more overt in determining what high performance will look like in their context, then clarifying that to all those involved in developing performance management so that accountabilities at all levels can be agreed, supported, and effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 8 years, debates about Australia's public service have evolved from being focused mainly on skills and capacities to being now increasingly concerned about the operating environment for career officials, their ability to fulfil their stewardship obligations, and to practice their 'craft'. In this article, I track those changes and ask what is the craft of public administration? How should we understand it? Are concerns it is imperilled or has been lost valid or overblown? I draw on the observations of current and former senior officials, and the findings of recent Capability Reviews. My primary focus is on the Australian Public Service, because here is where the debate has been most public and direct. I note that the focus of concern has shifted from public servants towards ministers, who have been largely absent from public sector reform initiatives of the past 40 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In explaining policy reform, there is a tendency to assume that causes and outcomes are temporally contiguous and that the consequences of reform efforts unfold quickly. There is no obvious reason, theoretical or empirical, why this should be the case when considering the relationships between policy failure and policy success. This paper considers why and how policy failures may be causally linked to future policy events in sequences over extended periods of time. In particular, this paper focuses on the different mechanisms that might connect assessments of policy failure and subsequent reform success. Empirically, it draws on selected evidence from patterns of policy failures and successes in Australian health policy over a 40-year time period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a re-imagining of Australian federalism in response to the White Paper on Reform of the Australian Federation. We acknowledge the unique nature and existing strengths and challenges confronting the Australian federation. In so doing we argue the value of listening to the history of the land in connection with its people and bringing landscape lessons into federation calculations moving forward. The distinctiveness of our federalism dreaming is distinguished from traditional calls for regionalism or regionalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]