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The 2016 Defence White Paper was started with the best of intentions, but released well past its expected date and with a new Prime Minister and Defence Minister at the helm. This article reviews the thirty month development of the 2016 Defence White Paper and the politics around its development and release. It argues that while the change of ministers and prime ministers clearly had an impact on the process and final text, it is just as important to recognise the changes which occurred during the Abbott Government as the changes between Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia is increasingly regarded as out of step in the global effort to combat climate change. Even the Australian Labor Party (ALP) Government, considered the climate-friendly alternative to the conservative Coalition, failed to deliver robust climate action from 2007 to 2013. This paper aims to validate the promising progressive rhetoric of the ALP Government from 2007 to 2013 to understand whether its commitment to climate action was genuine. It incorporates mixed methods to verify ALP attitudes to the environment and demonstrate the incidence of changing attitudes. This paper finds that the ALP deviated from ecocentrism in its framing of environment priorities towards a weak ecological modernisation approach to mitigation. This inconsistency suggests that climate change mitigation was an arbitrary priority for the ALP, rather than a cornerstone of its party platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, poverty has increasingly been marginalised in Australian policy discourse. One strategy used by social justice advocates to revitalise a poverty policy agenda has been the annual Anti‐Poverty Week campaign, which aims to stimulate community debate around policy innovations to relieve poverty. This paper analyses the Commonwealth parliamentary debates around Anti‐Poverty Week for 10 years from 2012 to 2021. We analyse and compare how politicians from three political parties – the Liberal and National Party Coalition, the Australian Labor Party and The Australian Greens – identified the key statistics for and groups in poverty, their sources of evidence, the consequences of poverty for those affected, the causes of poverty including whether or not disadvantage was linked to wider structural inequities, and the framing of poverty and potential policy solutions. Some conclusions are drawn from these findings about potential strategies for reinvigorating the poverty debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our democracy is predicated on voters choosing between political parties with competing ideologies that translate into different policy outcomes. Nonetheless, claims that ideology is of declining importance are common, and were a feature of the Rudd–Gillard Labor government. This paper seeks to examine the relationship between ideology and policy outcomes under that government. It defines Labor ideology by identifying the areas of consensus between three competing Labor traditions, and then examines the party's budget decisions on those policy areas. It finds that on the ideological consensus issues of income redistribution, public health and public education they implemented a substantial and coherent reform agenda consistent with Labor ideology. The consistency on the consensus issues contrasts with the 'flip‐flopping' on issues that were ideologically contested within the party, suggesting that far from being irrelevant, ideology was central to explaining both the strengths and weaknesses of Rudd–Gillard Labor. The Rudd/Gillard government pursued a strong clear agenda on issues on which there was ideological consensus in the party, but were pr ne to 'flip flopping' on issues that were internally ideologically contested. Findings suggest a coherent ideology is important in delivering effective government, and that Labor will need to find ways to reconcile its three competing traditions to be an effective government in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe economic rise of developing Asia has given impetus to debates over the geographic orientation, strategy, organisation, and collaborative relationships of the Australian aid programme. This paper examines these debates, Australian government responses, and the politics underlying these responses. It points to, among things, the different ways in which the Labor Party and the Liberal–National Coalition have dealt with these issues, reflecting their different constituencies and foreign policy philosophies. The paper also assesses the future trajectory of Australian aid policy, in particular, the extent to which it is embracing the Chinese model of aid. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the links between tariff protection and wage protection. These two areas of regulation were linked politically by a coalition of the Protectionist Party and the Labour Party which supported both policies together. In the regulatory systems themselves there were links through New Protection Policy and the major influence it had on the hugely important Harvester Judgment of the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration. By 1910, these developments had laid down the foundations of Australian tariff policy and labour market regulation which became among the most highly regulated markets in the non-communist world for many decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's latest defence plans have provoked controversy at home and in its region. A White Paper outlined plans for significant improvements in defence capability over the next two decades, including a doubling of the submarine fleet. But it raised questions about Australia's strategic interests and the affordability of the planned changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to look at the recent history of proposals to tax resource rents in Australia, from Australia's Future Tax System Report (the "Henry Tax Review") through to the proposed Resource Super Profits Tax ("RSPT") and then the Minerals Resource Rent Tax ("MRRT"). The process of change from Henry to the RSPT to the MRRT can best be understood in the context of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) as a capitalist workers' party. The author argues that it is this tension in the ALP, the shift in its internal balance further towards capital and the lack of class struggle, that has seen Labor preside over what the father of rent tax in Australia, Ross Garnaut, describes as a "problematic" tax. Design/methodology/approach -- Qualitative research using Marxist tools. Findings -- The paper argues that the poor health of the MRRT is a consequence of the nature of the Labor Party as a capitalist workers' party, the shifts in power and influence within its material constitution and in essence the ascendency of capital in the capitalist workers' party. Originality/value -- A very original approach to understanding the nature of the MRRT in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of this special issue examining policy transfer between the Labour parties in Australia and Britain, this paper seeks to explore the relationship between the two on ideological positioning. In the 1990s there was substantial ideas transfer from the Australian Hawke–Keating government to Blair ‘New Labour’ in Britain, as both parties made a lunge towards the economic centre. This paper analyses how the inheritors of that shift, the Rudd/Gillard government in Australia and the Miliband and Corbyn leaderships in Britain, are seeking to define the role and purpose of Labour parties in its wake. It examines the extent to which they are learning and borrowing from one another, and finds that a combination of divergent economic and political contexts have led to strikingly limited contemporary policy transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

'Sustainability' provides the dominant frame for environmental policy debate, even though there is considerable debate to as to what sustainability is, why is it needed, and how can it be progressed. From 1999 through to 2010, Victoria was governed by Australian Labor Party (ALP) led governments that, at times, actively pursued the goal of sustainable development. This culminated in the stated ambition for Victoria to be 'world leaders in environmental sustainability debate and practice'. This paper explores the way in which sustainability was enacted by Victorian Labor while in government. The evidence indicates that the potential of Victorian Labor's vision was never realized, and that it failed to significantly reform the neoliberal policy settings it inherited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2007 the Rudd Labor government in Australia introduced significant changes to education policy for the nation. The Skilling Australia's Future (Rudd et al. Skilling Australia for the future. Election policy document, 2007) policy was meant to redress a perceived failure by the previous Howard federal Liberal-National Coalition governments to fund and manage vocational skills training adequately. The Skilling Australia's Future policy established a number of areas for immediate action. This paper looks at one of these areas from the policy document, namely, the Rudd government's plan for addressing skills shortages (Rudd et al. , pp. 4-9) through the establishment of Trade Training Centres in schools. The policy is analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis, featuring the semiotic concept of intertextuality. Findings from the application of this method suggest that Skilling Australia's Future (2007) belongs within a history of like-minded policy and, although a new direction is provided by the allocation of Trade Training Centres to selected high schools, the policy is not clearly separable from the market-driven discourse that has pervaded education policy since the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the use of new media in the 2007 election. This election is commonly seen as a breakthrough for the use of Internet in electoral campaigning due to the high profile use of Internet channels in the 'Kevin 07' campaign and its association with the change of Government. The paper examines the impact of the technology on the presentation of political campaign messages in the campaign. In this election, the Internet played a more visible role in both centralised party and individual candidate campaign strategies. The paper concludes that while some innovation occurred, the overall application of new media was modest, which parties and candidates face unprecedented challenges from a wide variety of alternative online voices. The degree of political engagement with online channels remains limited, however, by the continued dominance of mainstream mass media channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines voter attitudes and behaviour at the 2007 Australian federal election, using data from the Australian Election Study. It considers socio-demographic factors as well as the role of policy issues and voter evaluations of the party leaders. The paper concludes that issues, such as the government's WorkChoices policy, as well as health and leadership contributed to Labor's victory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper traverses three consecutive policy periods with respect to Australian higher education equity, the first two driven by the policies of successive Labor Governments and the third by a highly deregulatory market liberal Coalition Government. It identifies the distinguishing characteristics of the national equity policy, planning and reporting framework put into place by Australian Labor Governments in the first of these periods (mid 1980s-mid 1990s). The second and abruptly concluded period is significant in terms of the evaluation it provides of the achievements of that framework and the elaboration of the principles, policy and procedures required to entrench progress over the longer term. The paper goes on to identify what remains of that framework in the third and contemporary era, given that the policies of the current conservative Coalition Government have brought about changes in higher education funding and policy directions which threaten to reverse what progress had been made in the two earlier periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the reform of environmental policy-making by the Hawke government through its creation of the Resource Assessment Commission (RAC). The paper pursues two themes. First, it argues that this reform must be seen within the broader context of the Hawke government's approach to public policy generally. The paper argues that the Australian Labor Party (ALP) has instituted a model for policy politics based on key strategic and normative approaches—a model this paper refers to as 'Accordism'. Secondly, this paper looks at the RAC and in so doing argues that, on the basis of the norms that underpinned the reform of environmental policy-making based on this body, the Commission may be placed squarely within the 'Accordist' paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]