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The article presents an overview of the green paper that proposes a strategy that is committed to lifetime access to career development services and on the national leadership role for the Australian government. It states that the paper is of particular relevance as the commitment of the Australian Commonwealth Government toward career development reached a low point. The significance to support individuals to acquire career management skills has also been recognized by the paper.

This research note discusses the 2009 Defence White Paper, particularly its focus on the potential threat the Chinese military might pose to the security of the Asia-Pacific in the foreseeable future. It also examines Chinese responses to the White Paper's main theses. It concludes that the White Paper marked a departure from the Howard government's policy of de-emphasising differences in Canberra's dialogue with Beijing and, by re-affirming commitment to the alliance with the United States (US), delineated the limits of Australia's partnership with China. However, its poorly substantiated predictions regarding the rise of China's power, the US economic and military decline and Beijing's geostrategic objectives raise doubts about the Rudd government's capacity to formulate a coherent vision for the future of Australia's relations with China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent white papers, Australia has identified rising authoritarianism in the region as a key challenge to its regional security interests. Foreign policy discourses highlight Australia's normative commitment to global democracy, and Australia engages in a range of democratic promotion activities. Democracy promotion by Western states has come under scrutiny by analysts of different ideological persuasions. Critics have framed American 'exceptionalism' as really meaning 'exemptionalism', referring to its capacities to create exceptions for itself and its own conduct on the global stage, particularly regarding democracy and human rights. This paper argues that this exemptionalism is not limited to the United States: Australia also engages in practices that have undermined its democracy promotion principles. In some cases, Australia's policies have enabled authoritarianism to flourish unchecked. This paper uses Australia's refugee policy and its effect on the small Pacific Island state of Nauru as a case study. It highlights how the securitisation of asylum seekers for electoral purposes has contributed to Australia carving out an exception for itself in both adherence to international refugee law and the promotion of democracy. It finds that formal democratic processes within Australia have produced undemocratic outcomes in foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This collection of papers focuses on the domestic and international politics of Australia's recent engagement with Asia. The theme of Asian engagement appears to be of particular pertinence to the current study of Australian politics given numerous pronouncements that we are entering an 'Asian century' during which key Asian economies will gain greater ascendancy and certain Asian states will come to play a more prominent role in global politics. We employ the idea of 're-engagement' in order to show how engagement with Asia has been turned to again and again by Australian governments, albeit in different political and strategic contexts. This collection aims to consider the politics of re-engagement from a number of different theoretical positions, as well as from a number of different perspectives (be it international relations/foreign policy, domestic politics, identity politics, or from the perspective of bilateral Asian partners). Emphasis is placed not simply on the foreign policy prerogatives behind re-engagement but also on the implications of the 'Asian century' for domestic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creative industries are recognised as a key driver of economic growth in both developed and developing nations. In addition to recognising the importance of creative industries, the Australian government has recently renewed a focus on the vast northern tropical area of this island nation as key to future economic and population growth, via the release of a white paper focussed on development options for the north. However, the white paper contains virtually no references to creative industries. In addition, Australia’s most recent national cultural policy, Creative Australia, has after only a few years slipped into obscurity and despite major resources being invested towards its development. Drawing on the almost 100 years of policy documentation relevant to Northern Australia, this paper highlights the limited attention paid to arts, culture and creative industries, and considers this relative policy vacuum in the context of global developments in creative industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author offers his views on the foreign policy of Australia. Topics discussed include the foreign policy White Paper released in March 2018, indications that the post-war global order has ended, and the changes that Australia has to make in order for it to be heard in the global arena. Also discussed are the three different kinds of public opinion dealing with foreign affairs, namely, the interest groups, the interested generalists, and the general public.

This paper investigates India and Australia's respective strategic narratives of regional order in the Indo-Pacific. Despite apparently significant convergences in their terminology around the desire for a 'stable', 'prosperous', 'open', 'free' and 'inclusive' Indo-Pacific, the regional order narratives of India and Australia each promote a distinct conception of regional order, reflecting different sets of political, geopolitical, economic and institutional concerns and agendas. India's narrative promotes 'issue-based' alliances with a variety of countries including China, Russia and the United States, to promote a multipolar regional order, and reflects a long-standing desire to culturally identify and economically integrate with East Asian states. Australia's narrative seeks to perpetuate the post-World War II status quo in the region, with respect to the continuation of a dominant US presence. It promotes closer partnerships with countries like India, Japan and Indonesia, within a US-led regional order, to diversify its economic and security relationships amidst perceptions of China's growing assertiveness. It also carves out a central strategic role for Australia in a region where its leaders have traditionally felt like 'outsiders'. The analysis advances a cultural political economy (CPE) approach to strategic narratives, demonstrating how and why strategic narratives are formed, projected and received at particular junctures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the diverse rendering of the idea of nation and the role of universities in nation-building in the 1950s Murray and Hughes Parry Reports in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. This paper provides trans-Tasman comparisons that reflect the different national and international interests, positioning of science and the humanities and desired academic and student subject positions and power relations. Design/methodology/approach – This paper adopts a Foucauldian genealogical approach that is informed by Wodak’s (2011) historical discourse analysis in order to analyse the reports’ discursive constructions of the national role of universities, the positioning of science and humanities and the development of desired academics and student subjectivities and power relations. Findings – The analysis reveals the different positioning of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand in relation to the Empire and the Cold War. It also demonstrates how Australian national interests were represented in these reports as largely economic and defence related, while Aotearoa/New Zealand national interests were about economic, social and cultural nation-building. These differences were also matched by diverse weightings attached to university science and the humanities education. There is also a hailing of traditional, enlightenment-inspired discourses about desired academic and student subjectivities and power relations in Australia that contrasts with the emergence of early traces of more contemporary discourses about equity and diversity in universities in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Originality/value – The paper demonstrates the value of transnational analysis in contributing to historiography about university education. The Foucauldian discourse analysis approach extends existing Australian historiography about universities during this period and represents a key contribution to Aotearoa/New Zealand historiography that has explored academic and student subjectivities to a lesser extent. [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]

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]

A 21st-century growth in prevalence of extreme right-wing nationalism and social conservatism in Australia, Europe, and America, in certain respects belies the positive impacts of online, new, and alternative forms of global media. Cross-national forms of 'far-right activism' are unconfined to their host nations; individuals and organisations campaign on the basis of ethno-cultural separatism, while capitalising on internet-based affordances for communication and ideological cross-fertilisation. Right-wing revolutionary ideas disseminated in this media, to this end, embody politico-cultural aims that can only be understood with attention to their philosophical underpinnings. Drawing on a dataset of articles from the pseudo-news websites, XYZ and The Unshackled, this paper investigates the representation of different rightist political philosophical traditions in contemporary Australia-based far-right media. A critical discourse and content analysis reveal XYZ and TU's engagement with various traditions, from Nietzsche and the Conservative Revolution, to the European New Right and neo-Nazism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines prime minister Robert Menzies decision to support science education in Australian schools in 1963. This was a landmark shift in policy for the federal government, but in many ways mirrors the decision of Eisenhower who brought down the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) in 1958. The paper uses a transnational approach to offer a new way of looking at the 1963 decision by focusing on the need for science education and the environment which supported science advocacy rather than the traditional interpretation of political expediency to court the Catholic vote. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the 2013 general election now out of the way, the new government is well placed, if it has sufficient strength of purpose, to address the various issues that are at risk of engulfing the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and Defence Department. The immediate and dominant issue is that likely levels of defence funding are not enough to sustain today's ADF and simultaneously to fund its modernisation. To resolve this core inconsistency will require dispassionate analysis of Australia's evolving strategic circumstances, so that decisions on the size and preparedness of the ADF and on the rate and direction of its modernisation can have a secure foundation. This will both allow assessments of strategic risk and provide a rigorous basis for arguing for different levels of funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to enter the current debate over the future of the South Australian Legislative Council by critiquing recent reform proposals and then outlining some modest suggestions for reform. The paper contends that a number of recent reform proposals are explicitly partisan and seek to enlarge the role of large parties and majority government. On the contrary others would ban political parties. The paper contends that whilst the Legislative Council exhibits many of the characteristics of an effective and useful upper house, reform of four areas would enable its review function to be improved. These areas include: the size of the Council; the term lengths of members; the method for resolving deadlocks; and the method for replacing retiring members. The paper then critically examines the proposal to ban political parties; and argues instead that instituting the Robson Rotation system would promote freedom of association and freedom of choice by voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines two different bill of rights models for Australia: the Dialogue model and a Democratic model. The Dialogue model aims to protect rights through a bill of rights, strong political review mechanisms, intergovernmental dialogue, and rights-based judicial review. The paper argues that, despite its popularity, there are serious problems with the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Dialogue model and it outlines an alternative model, a 'democratic bill of rights', which attempts to avoid these problems by strengthening democratic institutions and political review mechanisms without adopting rights-based judicial review. The paper concludes that a democratic bill of rights is likely to be an effective and more democratically legitimate way of protecting and promoting human rights in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to identify key similarities and differences between the approach to employing public-private partnerships (PPPs) for provision of infrastructure in the UK and Australia. Design/methodology/approach - The paper provides a comparison of published studies together with semi-structured interviews with academics and state government representatives. Findings - There are a number of issues on which similar debates are taking place in both countries and which are summarised in the paper. Such issues include the use of the public sector comparators, the process of initiating PPPs, choice of discount rate and differences in costs of capital between conventional procurement and PPPs. There are, however, also significant differences in that there tends to be fewer social projects in Australia which has a strong emphasis on transportation projects. Importantly there is much more discretion about whether to use PPPs in Australia than in the UK. Research limitations/implications - There are considerably fewer schemes in Australia. Practical implications - The main practical implications are that both countries need to at least reconsider their policies in a number of areas, but particularly the issue of the higher cost of borrowing in PPPs. UK government should consider the advantages of the more flexible approach towards adopting PPPs shown in Australia. This should also mean that the evaluation process will be taken more seriously. Originality/value - There are a significant number of articles about PPPs in both the UK and Australia. The author has never come across a report of a comparative study. There are important insights that can be gained from such a comparative study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of gender and politics have typically been studies of women and politics. In contrast, this paper places men at the centre of its inquiry by drawing on interviews with 15 current federal male politicians. Of concern is exploring the ways in which men conceptualise the question of gender equity in the Australian parliament. Three frameworks are identified in the men's narratives. These are that the parliament is a masculinised space but that this is unavoidable; that the parliament is now feminised and women are advantaged; and that the parliament is gender neutral and gender is irrelevant. It is argued that collectively these framing devices operate to mask the many constraints which exist to marginalise women from political participation and undermine attempts to address women's political disadvantage as political participants. The paper concludes by highlighting the significance of the paper beyond the Australian context and calling for further research which names and critiques political men and their discourses on gender and parliamentary practices and processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than a decade ago, the Australian Commonwealth Government introduced and funded a system of Cooperative Research Centres (CRC's) to bring scientists from universities, CSIRO, other government institutions, industry and private sector organizations from throughout Australia together. These CRC's were to work on specific research and development projects that would benefit from the critical mass of effort. In 2002 there were 65 CRC's in diverse fields but by 2009 there were 49 listed on their dedicated web page, each with its specific R&D focus. For this paper, each of these CRC's (and each of two university-based centres with a sustainability focus) was contacted to determine: its participants; its basic and applied research output; whether it is involved in biotechnology projects; whether clustering is used to enhance knowledge transfer through geographical proximity; and whether it is involved in regional and/or sustainable development. The response rate was 37% and the aggregated results are discussed. An additional questionnaire with open-ended questions was distributed to senior members of local industries, NGO's, government officials, and a local university in Gippsland, Victoria to further investigate collaboration for regional and sustainable development on a local basis. This questionnaire served the additional purpose of testing two previously published models on knowledge flows between such organizations for basic and applied research in Australia. The responses to both of these questionnaires are collated in this paper to depict the drivers and level of innovation in Australia as a whole and one regional area as an example. [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]

The analysis of Australian local government reform almost invariably focuses on systemic changes that can be wrought by the application of various policy instruments, like the structural reform of the scale of local councils or changes to the enabling legislation governing local government. Scholars typically use this approach and differentiate the efficacy of reform measures according to classifications of council by generic type. While this approach has been exceedingly fruitful in the past, this paper argues that small, remote and isolated Australian local authorities are sui generis in the sense that they are not amenable to standard reform policies because their unique circumstances and special characteristics. The paper considers the case of local shires in the Central West outback region of Queensland that comprise the Remote Areas Planning and Development Board (RAPAD) group of councils and attempts to draw some general lessons for local government policymakers. Despite the recent limited forced consolidation experienced by some RAPAD councils, we find that the 'tyranny of distance' afflicting RAPAD members means that it is not amenable to 'top-down' reform measures, like council amalgamation, and policy makers should instead focus on 'local solutions to local problems' and encourage feasible forms of resource sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant perspective in the literature linking governance, globalization and public policy argues that globalization undercuts state capacity, weakening a government's ability to effectively regulate its domestic affairs. This paper shows otherwise with special reference to the Australian experience in financial regulation. It challenges the conventional wisdom that the Australian state is weak and cannot adopt anticipatory industrial policies. This paper argues that the adoption of the ‘twin peaks' model of financial regulatory arrangements is an example of the existence of government-led steering in Australia which can adopt a proactive approach to financial regulation by steering and coordinating policy networks. ‘Governance through hierarchy’ in the financial services industry may be a function of the government's political entrepreneurship; its skill in setting and implementing an agenda; and an ability to create new policy communities and networks. [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]

Does Australia have a 'strategic policy'? Australia's debate has seen an inflation of the use of the term 'strategic policy', often used synonymously with 'defence policy' and 'strategic guidance' to indicate a major policy or to simply describe Australia's strategic environment. However, far from pure semantics, the term 'strategic policy' has become dissociated from the specific understanding of the policy objectives attached to the use and the threat of the use of military force. Instead, contemporary usage of 'strategic policy' has come to reflect what Everett Carl Dolman called a 'favourable continuation of events', reducing strategy to a mere functional adjective. Moreover, a focus on 'policy' as meeting the objectives of a state, as opposed to 'politik', which encompasses policy, politics and the polity, has led to the restriction on choices and objectives for Canberra. In an increasingly contested Asia, the Australian debate should avoid the obfuscation that comes with a term such as 'strategic policy' as this can have negative implications for Australian force structure and planning. More broadly, the application of the term 'strategic policy' reflects the challenge of Australia as a medium-sized power developing an independent strategy in the context of its history, geography, politics and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the effect of neo-liberalism upon the formation of Australian aid policy. The influence of neo-liberalism in setting objectives for the development of countries receiving Australian aid is described, citing the political leverage of commercial interests. The tendency of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and Liberal-National Coalition towards neo-liberalism is discussed. This tendency, combined with the institutional context of Australian government, effectively prevents groups who oppose neo-liberalism from participating in the formation of aid policy, according to the author. The methods by which neo-liberalism has risen to its level of dominance are discussed, as well as the potential implications of the 2008 change in Australian government.

This paper explores how an identity card scheme might work in Australia by using the UK Identity Card Scheme as a model. It explores the proposal for a national UK identity card scheme and assesses how it would reduce identity theft and fraud, improve national security, and maintain adequate privacy protection. The paper discusses the legal and social difficulties associated with the introduction of such a national identity card scheme and the issues which arise when a government seeks to broaden the scope of the scheme from identity fraud and security issues to include the efficient and effective delivery of public services. It suggests alternative approaches to ensuring identity management which are consistent with privacy and data protection restraints. This paper should contribute to the development of Federal Government policy in the area of a regulatory and legal framework for identity management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors reflect on the rural governance in Australia. They recount the complexity in the way of contemporary management, in which a growing range of community and non-governmental parties become more engaged in decision making process. They have contemplated on several works including Lionel Pero on natural resource management and Tiffany Morrison on the challenges inherent in the governance ideal. These materials correspond to the current research on rural governance being conducted.

The Greens challenge the Australian two-party system by promoting an alternative political agenda and by facilitating democratic processes. Their recent successes in federal and state elections suggest that the party itself deserves closer scrutiny. This paper shows how the Greens are organisationally different from other parties currently active in Australian politics due to both their internal processes and their parliamentary practices. Recent theories of parties argue that party organisation has changed significantly for major parties, adopting an electoral-professional or cartel model that centralises power and decision-making in party representatives within parliaments. This paper shows how a smaller party uses identity formation processes to establish a distinctive organisational style. We examine the Greens' party organisation by analysing the interdependent relationships between the party membership, the state and national offices, and Green MPs. The paper is based on original research including in-depth interviews undertaken with state and federal Greens members of parliaments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which both formal and informal control, operating as a package, are implicated in responding to organisational change arising from the introduction of the Australian Federal Government’s Clean Energy Act (2011). Design/methodology/approach – This investigation is based on a review of archival data, and semi-structured interviews conducted with 15 staff at different hierarchical levels within an Australian renewable energy company. Findings – Although formal management control systems and informal control both played important roles in the organisation’s reorientation to organisational change, it was the latter form of control that predominated over the former. The influence of the prevailing organisational culture, however, was pivotal in orchestrating both formal and informal control efforts within this organisation. Originality/value – This study contributes to management control theory and practice in two ways: first, it provides much needed empirical evidence about the ways in which management controls act as a package; second, it offers insights into the relative importance of the components of a management control package in the context of a particular organisational change. In addition, it responds to Laughlin’s (1991) call for empirical “flesh” to be added to the skeletal framework he advocates to make this conceptualisation of organisational change, “more meaningful”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The election of four One Nation Senators at the 2016 Australian Federal election has been seen as part of a world--wide rise of populist movements that criticizes main stream politics and rejects pluralism, putting forward single concepts of "the people", that the movements claim to represent. While it is clear that Australian voters, like voters elsewhere, have been seeking alternatives to the major parties, it is less clear that the preferred alternatives fit this populist framework. Australia provides a good case study as the Australian electoral system makes it relatively easy for independents and minor parties to be elected to Parliament. This paper examines all independents and minor party candidates successfully elected in 2016 and at previous Australian Federal elections to determine whether the alternatives to the main stream parties elected since 1945 fit anti-pluralist populist models. It is concluded that, with the exception of the One Nation Party, most of the independents and minor party candidates elected to the Australian Federal Parliament have not fitted such models. However many of those elected do present a challenge to the electoral claims of the major parties. The article concludes by considering the implications of these findings for representative democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Book length or long form is where much of Australia's literary journalism is sited. As such, this paper examines three long-form contributions to the recent Australian gender discourse garnered by the prime ministership of Julia Gillard. Julia Gillard was Australia's 27th—and first female—Prime Minister. She came to office determined that gender had not—and would not—play a part in her tenure. She left office embroiled in a gender struggle of acts and words and images unimaginable before they occurred. The media, the Opposition, members of her own party and ordinary Australians took part in a collective denigration of her reputation professionally, politically and personally. It continued unabated for three years, growing in intensity, and only towards the end of her leadership was it truly comprehensively contested in the public sphere; and then, mainly by women writers, writing in the long form. Between April and July 2013, six texts appeared, all either written or edited by women, constellating the notions of gender during and in the wake of Prime Minister Gillard's leadership. This paper examines three of them, long-form counterpoints to the popular and electronic media vilification of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard. In so doing, the paper examines the usage of the words “sexism” and “misogyny” as they were applied in Australia throughout this time. [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]

This article explores the politics and performance around the repatriation of the Unknown Australian Soldier (1993) and the Unknown New Zealand Warrior (2004). A comparison of the ‘Unknown Anzacs’ with the return of Indigenous bodily remains from overseas jurisdictions - drawing on the cases of Aboriginal leader and resistance fighter Yagan in the 1990s and Māori toi moko over the 2000s - reveals the complex politics of legitimacy and authority derived from the act of bodily interment. Mobilising both a postcolonial and a transnational framework, this paper shows how acts of repatriation expressed imagined worlds, and made apparent hidden relationships in the unsettled polities of postwar Australia and New Zealand, thus rendering them material in the nation. These transportations also reveal state involvement in violence and death and its role as perpetrator along with its responsibilities to victims and their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper explores the importance soccer can play in the lives, identities and memories of migrants by drawing on 32 oral history interviews conducted with Italians who settled in Sydney in the 1950s and 1960s. Sport can provide an illuminating lens for analysing the experience of migrants, because not only are sports sites of individual, regional, national and transnational identities, they can also facilitate social inclusion or, conversely, become sites of exclusion. Soccer in Australia is often celebrated as a multicultural game. At the same time, the expressions of the complex histories of migration, colonialism, exploitation and racial and ethnic discrimination that have shaped the game have often been silenced. The interviews show that soccer has been a key site of negotiation, agency and at times resistance for first and second generation migrants. We also argue that, while it is the de-ethnicisation of soccer that has understandably dominated media, political and academic debate, the concern of these migrants in recent years has been mostly with the loss of memory and with the removal of an important history made of shared relationships and bonding experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Under what conditions do citizens demand punishment of corrupt government officials or actions? Citizens' demands complement and motivate government actions. Studies suggest, however, that citizens' demands are weak and not credible. This paper considers that credible demands are the outcomes of strategic interaction between citizen groups. The results from experimental surveys in Australia and the United States show citizens' demands are credible across various conditions, including size of participants or groups, and regardless of whether they suffer losses from corruption, or whether other participants suffer losses from corruption. This paper makes three contributions. Firstly, it delineates a theoretical model that predicts concerted action. This is a useful alternative to extant treatments that generally report outcomes where coordination problems and free-ridership undermine citizens' concerted action and credibility. Secondly, experimental results clarify several conditions under which citizens' demands are credible, that is, when citizens act in concert to demand punishment. Thirdly, the consistent results across Australia and the US where individualism is high provide useful baselines for further studies. 公民们在什么情况下会要求惩治腐败的政府官员和腐败行为？研究证明，公民的要求虚弱而不可靠。本文认为可靠的要求来自公民群体间的战略互动。澳大利亚和美国的实验调查表明，公民的要求可靠与否取决于诸如参与者或群体规模等条件，而不论他们是否从腐败中受损，或别人是否从腐败中受损。本文有以下三点贡献。第一，勾画了预测腐败的模型。目前的方法报告了协调问题和免费搭车消弱公民协调行动和工信度的结果。该模型可为替代方法。第二，实验结果表明在一些情况下公民的要求是可靠的，那就是，当公民协调一致要求惩治腐败的时候。第三，个人主义发达的澳大利亚和美国的调查结果可以成为进一步研究的基点。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Traditional militant displays of proud working-class masculinity are no longer an advantage in union (or Labor Party) campaigns to win public support. This paper examines the contested masculinities within the construction industry, and specifically those deployed within the campaign by construction unions to achieve workers' rights on site, together with the strategic limitations for their campaigning options. The question of how unions in this sector can effectively campaign to protect their rights is considered, as is the dilemma for union leaders in managing members' legitimate outrage when its usual expression will replicate behaviour demonised by the unions' opponents. In the era of mediated political campaigning, and third-wave labour politics, unions are having to reinvent their public image and campaigning tactics. As the example of the construction unions shows, gender roles and performances of particular masculinities and femininities are highly significant in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the relationship between government growth and real GDP per capita by developing models of federal legislative output in Australia since 1901. Growth in legislation is found to be negatively related to growth in real income per capita in the short-run, implying that legislation responds to temporary economic shocks, but without a robust long-run relationship with the level of income. The growth in the number of pages of legislation enacted and legislative complexity also show a negative short-run relationship with growth in real national income per capita and a positive long-run relationship with the level of income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Trade Practices Act 1965 was widely criticised as being weak and unproductive. It was a significantly watered-down version of the original Bill overseen by Garfield Barwick. Although the final form of the Act was perceived as ineffective at the time, it is now viewed as an important step towards a national competition policy and a precursor to the opening up of the Australian economy. This paper outlines the economic, political and social background to the introduction of the legislation. We specify some of the factors that explain why its creation caused controversy and its importance in initiating change in Australians' attitudes towards collusive behaviour and economic protectionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Committees in the Australian parliament often make recommendations to government and attempt to persuade the government to accept them. Using a sample of committee reports tabled between the 2001 and 2004 elections, this paper measures the government acceptance of committee recommendations as a proxy for committees' influence. On average, the government stated it accepted three majority recommendations out of 11 per report, although this figure drops to two and a half when viewed as recommendations implemented and not merely promised. The government accepted virtually no minority recommendations. The most important report characteristic is the extent to which it affects the government's reputation, but the breadth of political support that it can muster is also relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns three significant aspects of twentieth-century history in both Australia and Britain: trade unions, railways and war. During the world wars trade unionists in both countries worked under poor conditions, and sometimes endured the loss of hard-won privileges in order to further the war effort, and in the hope that governments and employers would acknowledge their sacrifices and redress their grievances once peace was restored. The paper discusses two instances, one in Western Australia and one in Britain, where these grievances were not addressed after the war, and examines the different outcomes. After comparing the circumstances in which the Australian Standard Garratt and the WD 'Austerity' heavy freight locomotives were produced, it explores the problems with these engines and the outcomes arising from union grievances. Finally, the paper posits that studying the outcomes of these industrial disputes on the railways, arising out of wartime conditions, furthers our understanding of the stresses of war on society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses Australian Bureau of Statistics fiscal incidence figures to track trends in the Australian welfare state across the period 1984 to 2004. Its general aim is to assess the proposition that recent governments have been ‘grave-diggers’ of the welfare state in Australia. More specifically, it tracks the overall level of social expenditure at the household level and the degree of vertical redistribution between households. Since the period in question covers twelve years of Labor and eight years of Coalition government in Canberra, the authors also seek evidence of political effect in welfare state trends. Their general conclusion is that far from succumbing to neoliberalism, the Australian welfare state became if anything even larger over this period. Neither bipartisan economic liberalisation, nor competing party welfare policies, made much difference to the welfare state when viewed through a fiscal incidence lens. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides a critical analysis of the Australian government’s education revolution policy as promulgated in the media release document, Quality Education: The Case for an Education Revolution in our Schools. It seeks to problematize the government’s claim to marry quality and equity, via an analysis of the discursive strategies of the Australian government’s revolution talk. My analysis draws on the work of political theorists Jason Glynos and David Howarth and their synthesis of key ideas from Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory into a framework of explanatory ‘logics.’ This framework provides conceptual tools for conducting critical policy analysis, including: characterizing a discursive regime on a synchronic plane; accounting for its constitution, reproduction, and/or subversion on a diachronic plane; and explaining the ways in which it grips or seduces subjects at a nonrational level. Overall, the analysis of the education revolution in this paper demonstrates the value of this framework of explanatory logics for education policy analysis, in the process shedding some new light on the Australian government’s education revolution policy agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the relationship between the growing dominance of career politicians in the Australian federal legislature and models of party organisation. Using data on MPs in the Australian federal parliament, this study maps changes in models of party organisation to the occupational profiles of MPs between 1949 and 2007. The findings show a correspondence between the phenomenon of cartelisation and the appearance of legislators whose previous occupation was in the political sphere. The authors suggest that there is a relationship between different modes of party organisation and both the supply of candidates and the demand-side factors influencing party selectors. The paper concludes that theories of recruitment should include a greater emphasis on models of party organisation to explain better the uniformity of recruitment outcomes across advanced democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines Australia's approach to Western European integration in the 1950s. While superficially supportive of steps towards greater Western European cooperation, the Menzies government had an ambivalent attitude towards the integration process. Ministers and officials in Canberra recognised the importance of a strong and prosperous Western Europe, but the formation of a tightly knit Continental grouping also posed a number of major challenges to the makers of post-war Australian foreign policy. The Menzies government soon began to wonder whether attempts to create supranational bodies in Continental Europe accorded with Australian political, economic, and security interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Henry Tax Review is a work in progress, but it has already advanced sufficiently to constitute an important case study of state capacity in Australia. Using the Henry Tax Review as a case study, this paper sheds light on the question of whether the national political system is capable of devising and implementing long-term reforms. Whilst specific policy failures inevitably have a contingent dimension in the form of poor strategy and leadership or unfavourable economic conditions, the paper discusses the erosion of institutional and relational structures which, arguably, has diminished systemic political capacity. This is tantamount to a structural weakening of state capacity in Australia, a development which has the potential to erode the potential of any government to enact significant strategic policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]