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This entry includes data on changes to ministerial portfolios, party leadership changes and parliamentary composition (gender and party) in 2021. It notes changes to the Australian Electoral Act and the distribution of electoral seats federally. It includes election results from two subnational elections. It discusses a landmark report into the culture of the Australian Parliament, with specific reference to the relationship between political advisors and politicians, gender, bullying, and sexual assault. The entry notes the political decline of the ruling coalition government lead by Scott Morrison, and some, but not all, reasons for this. Policy issues discussed include women in politics, COVID‐19, climate change, the AUKUS security pact, the budget deficit and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women are underrepresented within political institutions, which can (negatively) impact policy outcomes. We examine women's descriptive representation as politically appointed staff within ministerial offices. Politically appointed staff are now institutionalised into the policy process, so who they are is important. To date, collecting systematic data on political staff has proved impossible. However, for the first time we demonstrate how to build a systematic data set of this previously unobservable population. We use Australian Ministerial Directories (telephone records) from 1979 to 2010 (a method that can notionally be replicated in advanced democratic jurisdictions), to examine political advising careers in a similar manner as elected political elites. We find that work in political offices is divided on gender lines: men undertake more policy work, begin and end their careers in higher status roles and experience greater career progression than women. We find evidence that this negatively impacts women's representation and their later career paths into parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The professional relationship between political journalists and political media advisers – intermediaries between the public and their elected representatives – is complex and, because the stakes are high on multiple levels, filled with tension. Underpinning it all is trust: a dynamic that to be effective must work in both directions and is cyclically tested, broken and repaired. As part of a PhD research project, in-depth interviews with practitioners from two sides of political communication revealed that the absence or presence of trust is the foundation stone of the relationship. While the relationship is fostered in speed-of-lightning environments, the study revealed old-fashioned conventions buttress the trust framework, but circumstances dramatically affect it. It is found that political media advisers aim to be honest, but approach this indirectly, and that political journalists see little need for transparency about their work before it enters the public realm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing corpus of empirical findings suggests that appointed partisan advisers are established and influential policy actors within the executive. Their policy work has long attracted concerted attention with respect to issues of accountability and politicization. Less attention however has been cast to concept and theory building, to link empirical findings with extant policy theory. This article presents careful analysis of the leading conceptual approaches to the study of these policy workers. It offers a critique of these approaches but suggests they share common logic and identify common attributes that can usefully be synthesized into a new framework. A framework is then advanced through the elaboration of four key concepts: buffering, bridging, moving, and shaping to focus on the substantive and procedural nature of partisan advisers' policy work. Combined with additional criteria, these are used to develop two subsidiary frameworks focusing on partisan advisers' policy advisory and policy process participation. The study of these actors is argued to not only benefit from improved linkages with policy theory, but that policy theory itself may be improved through focused study of these unique, politically appointed, policy workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing policy advice is often the epitome of a public service career, the opportunity to have a direct influence on policy. Yet there is a wide range of circumstances in which policy advice might be sought, requiring different information, timetables and depths of analysis. This will necessitate the development of a number of skills and be dependent on the political and administrative circumstances. Using the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet as a case study, we develop a typology of policy advice, ranging from intelligence gathering, to reviewing options, coordinating policy and sometimes initiating strategy. We illustrate the implications of these differing types of work to show how public servants must approach policy advising, conscious of and within a framework that supports different approaches to policy work according to the situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerned by declining interest, trust, and participation by citizens in democratic politics, governments and political institutions worldwide are turning to the internet in attempts to revitalise democracy through online public consultation and citizen participation, referred to as e-democracy or 'government 2.0'. This paper reports research into the planning and conduct of a series of online public consultation trials launched by the Australian federal government in late 2008, and it compares and contrasts Australian experiences with international e-democracy developments, including the Obama presidential campaign and findings of the Digital Dialogues review of online technologies to enhance citizen engagement in the UK, the UK Power of Information Task Force review, and experiments conducted as part of the MIT Deliberatorium. This paper presents qualitative analysis of findings in 10 areas, which it argues can be further grouped into four main areas of management focus of which technology, often the major topic of discussion, is important but less significant than policy, culture and resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of ministerial advisers in policy-making in Australia is a subject that has not received enough detailed attention. While advisers are often described as influential in policy-making, we do not have a full understanding of the policy roles that they play. Much research focuses on advisers' work in promoting political control through their work with departments. This paper conceptualises advisers' distinctive policy-making roles, based on recent empirical research on ministerial advisers in the Keating years (1991–96). How active advisers were varied significantly. The paper describes the policy roles of 'very active' advisers. Based on their own descriptions of their work and using examples, the paper outlines five distinctive policy roles: agenda-setting; linking ideas, interests and opportunities; mobilising; bargaining; and 'delivering'. In these roles advisers believed they could make a real difference to policy outcomes, even though they were not decision-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changing nature of governance in Australia over the last two decades has given rise to a broad range of new strategies to review the development and delivery of government policies and programs. Key factors affecting the relationship between citizens and the state have been the deregulation and liberalisation of the Australian economy, with its focus on the market for the delivery of services, once the exclusive domain of public sector organisations. The increased use of consultants over this period is an example of governments going to the market for professional services. Effective policy development and review by consultants requires that they be well versed both in the substantive issues surrounding the policy field as well as in the process required to properly frame and evaluate these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on the article 'Rethinking Caretaker Conventions for Australian Governments,' by G. Davis and colleagues which focuses on the need to consider the implications of a delayed result for political conventions. Use of performance-based contracts for senior public servants that undermined the political character of public service appointments; Role of political advisers and public servants.