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This article compares the approaches to poverty elimination adopted by the UK government White Paper on international development and the Australian government's review of its overseas aid programme (Ausaid Review). Both documents adopt sustainable poverty reduction/elimination as the key policy leitmotiv of overseas aid policy. However, a difference of approach is in evidence. The UK White Paper ventriloquizes the DAC and World Summit social policy targets and ambitiously elevates its own departmental policy and values to that of government policy overall--though without specifying the instruments by which this consistency can be assured. The silence on the resource implications of the overriding objective of poverty elimination, in terms of budgetary provision, could create a credibility gap between intentions and programme implementation. The Ausaid Review, on the other hand, hones its cutting edge on the complex, often self-serving array of development programmes that are often lacking in focus and harboured from external scrutiny by an overprotective bureaucracy. The Review suggests the adoption of a single value statement of 'poverty reduction through sustainable development' by which all programmes should be judged. The predominantly Australian-based tertiary education scholarship programme is criticized for pandering to domestic educational constituencies and reflecting a weak linkage to poverty reduction. However, in the final analysis the narrow geographical focus of the programme, the privileged status of PNG and the level of tied aid remain substantially intact--despite serious question marks over their poverty content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on infrastructure spending and unemployment in Australia. The Australian government's policy package had several components. The first was a recognition that high economic growth was required if significant inroads into unemployment were to be achieved. Given the government's beliefs about the likely outcomes for labour productivity and the labour force participation rate, it was thought that a real growth rate of 4.8 per cent would be required to achieve the target unemployment rate of 5 per cent by 2001. The Green Paper and the subsequent White Paper were pretty vague as to exactly how such a long stretch of high economic growth was to be achieved, placing a lot of faith on microeconomic reform and improving the quality of labour through training reform. However, it was also recognised that high growth by itself was not sufficient, and that a policy of active labour market programs directed at the long-term unemployed and those at high risk' of becoming long-term unemployed would be necessary to reduce long-term unemployment. The Job Compact was an extensive raft of active labour market programs which included an expanded wage subsidy scheme, training programs and case management of the chronically unemployed and which placed an obligation on targeted individuals to participate in the scheme to retain unemployment benefits.

Regional economic policy-makers are increasingly interested in the contribution of creativity to the economic performance of regions and, more generally, in its power to transform the images and identities of places. This has constituted a ‘cultural turn’, of sorts, away from an emphasis on macro-scale projects and employment schemes, towards an interest in the creative industries, entrepreneurial culture and innovation. This paper discusses how recent discourses of the role of ‘creativity’ in regions have drawn upon, and contributed to, particular forms of neoliberalisation. Its focus is the recent application of a statistical measure — Richard Florida's (2002) ‘creativity index’— to quantify spatial variations in creativity between Australia's regions. Our critique is not of the creativity index per se, but of its role in subsuming creativity within a neoliberal regional economic development discourse. In this discourse, creativity is linked to the primacy of global markets, and is a factor in place competition, attracting footloose capital and ‘creative class’ migrants to struggling regions. Creativity is positioned as a central determinant of regional ‘success’ and forms a remedy for those places, and subjects, that currently ‘lack’ innovation. Our paper critiques these interpretations, and concludes by suggesting that neoliberal discourses ignore the varied ways in which ‘alternative creativities’ might underpin other articulations of the future of Australia's regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gough Whitlam's Labor government came to office in December 1972 with a vast and transformative reform agenda, at the heart of which was a fundamental policy shift in Aboriginal affairs away from assimilation and toward self‐determination, described by Whitlam as; 'Aboriginal communities deciding the pace and nature of their future development as significant components within a diverse Australia'. Whitlam's commitment to self‐determination reflected the United Nation's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which refers to the right of all peoples to 'freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development'. Whitlam made it clear that Aboriginal Affairs would be a priority of his government with the establishment of the first separate Ministry for Aboriginal Affairs and his government introduced a suite of path‐breaking policies for Aboriginal people. Pat Dodson, the inaugural chairperson of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, later described the change in policy and intent under Whitlam as, 'a transforming sentiment in this country for Aboriginal people'. This article explores the key features of Whitlam's Indigenous policy and argues that Whitlam's commitment to self‐determination was a unique and radical policy reframing in Indigenous affairs not seen before or since. These advances were wound back by the conservative government of Malcolm Fraser and the 'transforming sentiment' soon reverted to one of 'self‐management' and unarticulated assimilation. This article explores the key elements of the Whitlam government's commitment to self‐determination, described as 'Aboriginal communities deciding the pace and nature of their future development', as the defining feature in Indigenous policy. The paper argues that Indigenous self‐determination was a unique policy reframing specific to the Whitlam government which was rapidly over‐turned by the Fraser conservative government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Municipal amalgamation has been the main policy instrument of local government structural reform programmes in Australia for well over a century. However, council consolidation programs have not achieved the intended cost savings or improved service provision promised by advocates of this means of structural reorganisation. This paper considers whether the failure of municipal amalgamation processes to produce significant economic benefits necessarily implies that structural reform programs that invoke consolidation have no place in Australian local government policy. It is argued that ‘top-down’ state government structural reform policy initiatives carrying the threat of amalgamation constitute an efficient mechanism for evoking optimal ‘bottom-up’ structural change models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on Australian government policy for full employment. Creating more jobs is the key to reducing Australia's too high level of unemployment and moving towards full employment. The authors will not dwell on the definition of full employment. Perhaps a target rate of unemployment, like the 5 per cent of Working Nation, might be helpful in the medium term. It may be possible, however, in the long term, to reduce unemployment to lower levels. There will need to be a focus on raising aggregate employment supplemented by special initiatives for those with lower skills who are disproportionately represented among the unemployed. The path and underlying causes of unemployment in Australia since 1945 are reviewed to provide a background for proposed solutions. The analysis indicates that faster economic growth and constrained average labour cost growth clearly have to be major parts of a successful strategy to increase employment. However, special initiatives will be required to raise the employment prospects of those with low skills who are heavily represented among the unemployed. The paper considers key elasticities and the order of potential employment gains from restraining real wages, especially of the low skilled. It also considers options for changing the tax and social security system to more directly and explicitly meet social equity goals than can be achieved through the wage system, in order to allow the wage system to be more efficient in creating employment.

Australia and some European countries experienced economic “miracles” in the 1990s that reversed prior poor export, employment, and fiscal performance. The miracles might provide transferable lessons about economic governance if it were true that economic governance institutions are malleable, and that actors deliberately changed those institutions in ways that contributed to the miracles. This paper analyzes Australian policy responses to see whether remediation should be attributed to pluck (intentional, strategic remediation of dysfunctional institutions to make them conform with the external environment), luck (environmental change that makes formerly dysfunctional institutions suddenly functional), or just being stuck (endogenous or path-dependent change that brings institutions into conformity with the environment). These distinctions help establish whether actors can consciously engineer institutional change that is “off-path.” While pluck appears to explain more than either stuck or luck in the Australian case, the analysis suggests that both off-path behavior and policy transfer are probably rare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the article "Infrastructure Spending and Unemployment: Government Responsibility for Growth and Jobs," by Peter Kenyon. The current rate of unemployment in Australia is excessively high. The Australian population would benefit greatly from government economic policies that reduce the rate of unemployment. Peter Kenyon argues in his paper for an increase in publicly funded infrastructure projects. Such a policy would be, in his view, the quickest and surest policy to deal with unemployment. In arguing for this policy, Kenyon observes that studies have shown that public sector infrastructure creates positive externalities for the private sector. Furthermore, Kenyon argues that, in Australia, productive infrastructure projects are there for the investing. This he infers from his view that the decline in Australia in public investment from 8 per cent of GDP in the 1960s to about 4.5 per cent of GDP now was caused by `the short-term policy of government budget deficit reduction' and not by fewer projects passing the test of cost-benefit analysis. Kenyon points out that this decline in public investment has not been accompanied by an offsetting increase in private sector investment. These arguments suggest that an increase in public investment would be productive.

Community engagement has come to the fore as a policy and programme approach that seeks to connect citizens both with each other and with government in order to deliver improved social and economic opportunities and outcomes. This model has become a key aspect of the intervention approach within Indigenous communities and is seen to have particular application in addressing community justice issues. This article examines a suite of community justice initiatives being used in Indigenous communities in Australia with a view to ascertaining how the principles of community engagement are operationalized. The article draws on this information and argues that community engagement is only one aspect of a number of community-oriented justice initiatives currently being applied. These initiatives range from concepts of community as a location, community as an interest group, and the leveraging of community capital so as to tap into and build better and stronger relationships. In so doing, the latter attempts to increase the social infrastructure, resources and capacity of communities. However, despite government attention in this area, there is a lack of a policy and programmatic framework to guide a coherent and apposite approach to issues of community in specific policy settings. The article contributes to the development of a framework that begins the process of differentiating and assessing justice administration interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses structural changes and emerging policy issues in the Australian petrol industry. The evolution of wholesale markets is a globalisation story: rapid economic growth in countries like China and India is bringing global crude and petrol prices to historical levels and creating significant changes in Australian petrol refining and distribution. In the retail market, recent anti-trust cases have centred on information technology, specifically online platforms that aim to inform firms and consumers of petrol prices. I discuss these and other developments that are creating new challenges for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Intergenerational Reports have helped lengthen the horizon of public policy analysis in Australia, enabling governments to focus on the longer term implications of policy changes, particularly their fiscal implications. Nonetheless, it is important to note that the reports have examined fiscal sustainability from the Commonwealth's perspective, notwithstanding that fiscal sustainability is also an issue for the states and territories. Additionally, the reports have not incorporated contingent fiscal liabilities, notwithstanding their relevance to fiscal sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban growth is a major theme in economic development and a policy imperative for developed countries that seek to create sustainable cities. We argue that the past weighs heavily on the ability of societies to sustainably manage urban environments. The policy implications of urban history are revealed in comparisons of cities across times and between places. The special issue presents some of the best recent work on the economic and social history of Australian cities. We aim to encourage historians to incorporate urban variables into studies of historical processes and to persuade policymakers to consider historical trends in their analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]