Search

The article presents a discussion on immigration into Australia after the Second World War. Between 1947 and 1956, over one million immigrants arrived in Australia. This represents an average annual increase of about 1.1 per cent in the total population of the continent. With the exception of Israel, the rate at which these immigrants poured in was the highest of any country. Sustained immigration, plus the equally fast natural growth of about 1.3 per cent annually, should result in a total population of 10 million in about 1960. In 1946, similar to Great Britain's White Paper on full employment, the Commonwealth government of Australia issued its White Paper on Employment. This paper established high and stable employment as the principal objective of economic policy. The original immigration policy has hardly at all been considered in relation to the full employment goal of the Welfare State. In fact, economic motivation became prominent only after humanitarian and national defense reasons of the early post-war Operation Welcome more or less ran out.

This note has two purposes: first, to provide the balance-of-payments argument missing in the analyses of the wage policy advocates and of Professor Russell—not in terms of fundamental balance-of-payments disequilibrium as suggested by Russell, but in terms of the growth aspect of the Australian balance of payments; second, to point out that, contrary to Russell's belief, his own recommendation, as compared with that of wage policy advocates, may result in a lower rate of growth of real wages in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses executive training efforts in Australia in the 1960's. In 1957 the Australian Administrative Staff College was established and represented the only organized executive training program outside of corporations and institutes of management. The College was set up by private business in response to presumed business needs. It was set up as an entirely autonomous body. The College's program has created an important link between public and private management. The College's main objective is to conduct an advanced course of study for the training and development of mature executives.

The article explores the essential features of the national wage policy in Australia. The determination of wage rates in the country is in the hands of a large number of tribunals, constituted under state and federal law. The centralization of decision-making in wage-fixing has been encouraged by the centralized structure of unions representing nearly 60 per cent of all wage and salary earners, and employers' organizations. However, the present constitutional provisions, the federal government has no powers to fix wages and prices.

The author discusses the role and status of the generalist and the specialist by contrasting Australian and British practice in government services. With the disperse and not easily exploitable resources of the Australian Colonies, the development of the country became the responsibility of Colonial Governments as of private enterprise. The first public service legislation in Australia, the Victorian Service Act of 1862, divided the whole service into a Professional and an Ordinary Division, with no special recognition for the head of a department. On the other hand, the Institution of Professional Civil Servants has been making efforts to obtain better salaries and a better share in the administration of professional departments since 1918 in Great Britain.