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We argue that the everyday language distinction drawn between power and influence is meaningful and significant. There is good reason to believe that much corporate lobbying activity which is currently described under the heading of business power is better understood as attempts to secure negotiated agreements based on exerting influence rather than power and that the latter is usually used only when attempts to use influence have failed. We develop an analytical distinction between influence, understood as successful efforts at persuasion, and power using Keith Dowding's work on power. Drawing upon findings from interviews with corporate professionals operating at the coalface of business and government interaction in Australia, we show that lobbyists generally seek "quiet" behind-the-scenes accommodations with governments via attempts to exert influence rather than power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large corporations in Australia have shifted from limited to more fulsome engagement in political activity (CPA) in recent decades. The paper argues that this reflects corporate institutional change in response to wider changes in the environment that have included growing government intervention, increased industry concentration and intra-sectoral competition, and a more complex and challenging discursive and issues environment. Quantitative and regression-based analysis of the drivers of CPA are employed and the analysis is extended and deepened with material drawn from interviews with twenty-five corporate government relations professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether or not policy is responsive to public opinion is central to questions of representation. Democracy by many accounts is premised on there being a strong correspondence between public opinion and policy. This link has not, however, been examined in detail in Australia. This article examines the policy–opinion link in a more robust way than that has previously been achieved in Australia, through the use of legislative data from the Australian Policy Agendas Project (APAP) and public opinion data from Roy Morgan. The article asks: is policy congruent with public opinion in Australia? In addressing this question, we examine to what extent policy accords with the preferences of the public. This in turn provides us with some answers about how representative Australian democracy is, as well as contributing to an international debate about the responsiveness of policy to public opinion. 政策是否要对舆论负责，这是代表制的核心问题。民主的前提往往就在于舆论和政策之间的息息相通。但在澳大利亚，人们并没有仔细地研究过二者间的关联。本文根据澳大利亚政策议题计划提供的立法资料以及罗伊摩根提供的舆情资料，对政策—舆论关联做了比以往充分多的研究。本文试问：政策与舆论在澳大利亚是否一致？我们考察了政策在多大程度上符合民意。这也为澳大利亚民主在多大程度上具有代表性的问题提供了答案，对于国际上争论政策对民意的回应问题也具有参考意义。。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is a reply to David Marsh and Chris Lewis' response to our paper ‘The Structural Power of Business and the Power of Ideas: The Strange Case of the Australian Mining Tax’. In this paper, we respond to the points their arguments raise about our theoretical framework and empirical case-study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2010 the Australian federal government fought and lost an intense and very public battle with the country's mining industry over the introduction of a new ‘super-profits’ tax. The proposed tax was withdrawn and the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was removed from office. Why did the government lose this battle and what can this episode tell us about the nature and determinants of business power? We argue that business power is not an objective condition but is shaped subjectively and inter-subjectively. What counts in the power equation is not whether business investmentisessential for growth or whether businesswilldisinvest if a new tax is imposed, but whether actorsbelievethis to be the case. One reason why the structural power of business varies is because actors’ normative and causal ideas about the value and determinants of business investment vary. In the Australian case ministers did not believe that the introduction of a new tax would jeopardise investment. Ministers did however come to believe that the mining industry had successfully persuaded a large number of voters that the introduction of a new tax would jeopardise investment, employment and growth. This is why the tax was eventually abandoned. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The authors reflect on the views of commentator Ian Marsh on an article published in the issue of the journal that they have edited which surveyed the development of the policy agenda in Australia since 1963. They oppose on the comments of Marsh citing that they overlooked the importance of political parties in the country. They assert that Marsh's views failed to note the role of other significant factors interacting with the party system to drive the policy agenda of Australia.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including changing policy content and implementation styles for policies in the Australian Commonwealth from 1960 to 2013, Australian economic policy, and the lack of partisan changes for Australian foreign policy agendas.

In Australian politics, narratives have developed around the ideological lineage of prime ministers from the same party so that, for example, Howard is often compared to Menzies and Hawke to Whitlam. In this article we examine the extent to which the ideology (left–right) of prime ministers from the same party has changed over time. We analyse the contents of speeches the Governor-General delivered at the opening of parliament between 1946 and 2010. We validate a number of narratives around the ideological lineage of prime ministers in relation to their party predecessors, and invalidate others, by analysing the speeches using the Comparative Manifestos Project coding scheme. This article also argues that parties do matter and shows how the addition of coding for ideology can complement the Policy Agendas Project method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Policy Agendas Project collects and organises data from official documents to trace changes in the policy agenda and outputs of national, sub-national and supranational governments. In this paper we use the policy agendas method to analyse the changing contents of those Australian Governor-General's speeches delivered on behalf of incoming governments between 1945 and 2008. We suggest that these speeches provide an important insight into how the executive wishes to portray its policy agenda as it starts a new term of government. In mapping the changing agenda in this way we address four questions: which issues have risen or fallen in importance? When and in relation to what issues have there been policy 'punctuations'? How stable is the Australian policy agenda? How fragmented is the policy agenda? We find evidence of a number of policy punctuations and one turning-point: the election of the Whitlam government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses internships within the academic field of political science. The author focuses on the benefits of creating internship schemes and challenges related to establishing and sustaining internships. The effect of internships on social mobility and in bridging the gap between work and study is noted. Several political science programs are briefly described at institutions such as the University of Adelaide, the University of New South Wales, and Queensland University. Emphasis is given to the idea of internships helping students to find employment and practical applications for the academic study of politics.