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In common with other advanced market economies, regional and rural communities in Australia have come under increasing economic and social stress. One manifestation of this phenomenon is the growing spatial inequalities in social and economic conditions. This paper briefly reviews the genesis of spatial inequalities and examines their consequences in the contemporary Australian political milieu. The discussion concludes with an analysis of the policy implications of these inequalities for local governments and communities in disadvantaged regional and rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper considers empirical data drawn from reform of a large Australian public sector organization in the context of debate about reform of public sector organizations. It provides an ethnographic account of new public management that confounds propositions drawn from literatures both sympathetic and antithetical to this reform process. Empirically, we find that sedimented bureaucratic principles and innovative 'enterprising' freedom produce new power games around contradictory and unresolved dualisms. Neither reform hopes nor liberal anxieties are supported: instead, we identify continuing points for pressure in the organizational politics of bureaucratic reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]