Reviews

Books reviewed in this article:
The Ethics of Economic Rationalism John Wright
Platypus and Parliament: The Australian Senate in Theory and Practice Stanley Bach
Parliamentary Privilege Enid Campbell
The Australian Experience of Public Sector Reform: Occasional Paper Two Australian Public Service Commission
Off Course. From Public Place to Marketplace at Melbourne University John Cain and John Hewitt
Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class: From Alfred Deakin to John Howard Judith Brett     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
LEX DONALDSON, In Defence of Organization Theory: A Reply to the Critics
GERALD GRIFFIN, White Collar Militancy: The Australian Banking and Insurance Unions
STUART MACINTYRE, Winners and Losers. The Pursuit of Social Justice in Australian History
WARREN G. OSMOND, Frederic Eggleston: An Intellectual in Australian Politics     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
MAX FRENKEL, Federal Theory , Canberra, Centre for Research on Federal Financial Relations
KENNETH WILTSHIRE, Planning and Federalism: Australian and Canadian Experience , St. Lucia
CHRISTOPHER D. GILBERT, Australian and Canadian Federalism 1967–1984: A Study of Judicial Techniques
MARK BIRRELL (ed.), The Australian States: Towards a Renaissance
IVAN BERINGER, GEORGE CHOMIAK, HAMISH RUSSEL, Corporate Management: The Australian Public Sector , Sydney
S.R. MAHESHWARI, The Higher Civil Service in Japan , New Delhi,
O.P. DWIVEDI AND NELSON E. PAULIAS (eds), Ethics in Government     

THE POLITICS OF MICROECONOMIC REFORM: STRUCTURING A GENERAL MODEL1

Abstract: This paper examines the current endeavours to render the Australian economy more economically efficient. While the case for microeconomic reform is clear in economic theory, Australian public policy analysts are less sanguine about the possibilities for its long-term success. This paper seeks to develop the parameters of a simple general model to explain both why microeconomic reform proposals are dominant today on the Australian policy agenda and, more importantly, what the conditions are for their success or failure. This general model provides a framework that will allow further elaboration in case studies of particular episodes of microeconomic reform.
The paper concludes pessimistically; micro-economic reform has been subsumed into the normal political agenda contests of Australian party politics. The pressures of such "politics" inclines Australian reforming towards incrementalism, rather than the Simon-style rationalism implicit from micro-economics. This mode of policy implementation will inhibit microeconomic reform in the longer term.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
R.L. WETTENHALL, Bushfire Disaster: An Australian Community in Crisis
ALAN STRETTON, The Furious Days: The Relief of Darwin
KENNETH W. KNIGHT and KENNETH W. WILTSHIRE, Formulating Government Budgets. Aspects of Australian and North American Experience
PARTICK WELLER and JAMES CUTT, Treasury Control in Australia: A Study in Bureaucratic Politics
KENNETH W. WILTSHIRE, compiler and editor, Administrative Federalism: Selected Documents in Australian Intergovernmental Relations
R. W. CONNELL, Ruling Class, Ruling Culture. Studies of Conflict, Power and Hegemony in Australian Life
S. R. MAHESHWARI, The Civil Service in Great Britain
S olomon E ncel , P auline K. M arstrand , W illiam P age (eds), The Art of Anticipation: Values and Methods in Forecasting     

Pragmatic Federalism: Australian Federalism from Hawke to Howard

The article explores the nature of Australian federalism by examining four major themes in the period from Hawke to Howard. The investigation of these themes – Australian conceptions of federalism; the role of party in shaping federalism; the way problems and politics have influenced policy‐making and thereby federalism; and the nature of federal judicial review – suggests that Australian federalism can most accurately be characterised as pragmatic. It appears as a federalism shaped by pressing problems, specific policy agendas and the prevailing political dynamic, rather than by overarching conceptions of federalism derived from political theory or articulated in party ideology. This pragmatic federalism explains important aspects of Australian federalism, especially the trend towards centralisation of authority.     

Unintended Consequences: Implications of the 2014 Australian Defence Force Pay Deal

The Workplace Remuneration Arrangement agreed between the Australian Government and the Australian Defence Force (ADF) provides for a 4.5% pay over 3 years for ADF personnel. This article makes use of the concept of the psychological contract to argue that this pay deal represents a breach of the Australian Government's obligations towards ADF personnel that is likely to have unintended consequences for their long‐term commitment to their ADF careers.     

Federalism Dreaming? Re‐imagining the Governance of Australian Landscapes

We propose a re‐imagining of Australian federalism in response to the White Paper on Reform of the Australian Federation. We acknowledge the unique nature and existing strengths and challenges confronting the Australian federation. In so doing we argue the value of listening to the history of the land in connection with its people and bringing landscape lessons into federation calculations moving forward. The distinctiveness of our federalism dreaming is distinguished from traditional calls for regionalism or regionalization.     

Governing disorder: the Australian Federal Police and Australia's new regional frontier

Abstract

The Australian Federal Police has in recent years become an important actor in both the implementation and design of Australian-led state building interventions in Australia's near region of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. The article focuses on the recent expansion of the Australian Federal Police as a way of understanding the emergence of a new partly (and strategically) deterritorialized, ‘regional’ frontier of the Australian state. Within this new frontier, whose fluctuating outlines the Australian Federal Police not only polices but also to a considerable extent shapes and reshapes, as one of the primary expert agencies on identifying and managing transnational security risks, Australian security is portrayed as contingent on the quality of the domestic governance of neighbouring states, thereby creating linkages between the hitherto domestic governing apparatus of the Australian state and those of other countries. This allows for the rearticulation of the problems affecting intervened states and societies – indeed, their very social and political structures – in the depoliticized terms of the breakdown of ‘law and order’ and the absence of ‘good governance’, which not only rationalizes emergency interventions to stabilize volatile situations, but also delegitimizes and potentially criminalizes oppositional politics. The Australian Federal Police, however, does more than merely provide justification for intrusive state transformation projects. Its transnational policing activities open up a field of governance within the apparatus of intervened states that exists in separation from international and domestic law. The constitution of such interventions ‘within’ the state leaves intact the legal distinction between the domestic and international spheres and therefore circumvents the difficult issue of sovereignty. As a result, police and other executive-administrative actors obtain discretionary ordering powers, without dislodging the sovereign governments of intervened countries.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
ALF RATTIGAN, Industry Assistance: the inside story
B. HEAD(ed.), The Politics of Development in Australia
A. PATIENCE (ed.), The Bjelke-Petersen Premiership 1968–1983: Issues in Public Policy
DONALD C. ROWAT, The Ombudsman Plan: The Worldwide Spread of an Idea
P. R. HAY, J. HALLIGAN, J. WAR-HURST and B. COSTAR (eds), Essays on Victorian Politics
BEDE NAIRN, The 'Big Fella': Jack Lang and the Australian Labor Party 1891–1949
JIM HAGAN, Australian Trade Unionism in Documents
ALEXANDER KOUZMIN, J. R. NETHER-COTE, ROGER WETTENHALL (eds), Australian Commonwealth Administration 1983: Essays in Review
J. R. NETHERCOTE, ALEXANDER KOUZMIN, ROGER WETTENHALL (eds), Australian Commonwealth Administration 1984: Essays in Review     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Bruce Mccallum , The Public Service Manager: An Introduction to Personnel Management in the Australian Public Service R. J. K. Chapman and Michael Wood , Australian Local Government Kosmas Tsokhas , A Class Apart? Businessmen and Australian Politics 1960–1980 Andrew Kakabadse and Suresh Mukhi (eds), The Future of Management Education Jonathan Boston , Incomes Policy in New Zealand: 1968–1984, Wellington, Victorian University Press for the Institute of Policy Studies David Dery , Problem Definition in Policy Analysis     

Foreign and Defence Policy on Australia's Political Agenda, 1962–2012

This paper explores the content of the Australian foreign and defence policy agenda over the past 50 years, finding evidence of both continuity and change. Australian political leaders have generally committed to cooperation with international institutions, wealth creation through engagement with Asian economies in particular, and security through the American alliance. In this period, changes in foreign policy approach either concerned marginal issues or were driven significantly by exogenous factors: by changes in the international environment or by global events that propelled a reconsideration of Australian foreign and defence policy interests. However, periods of policy change and significant public attention in – particular around the Vietnam and Iraq wars – illustrate the continued relevance of political choices and agency. Both conflicts and debates around them ushered in changing foreign and defence policy considerations, and both raised fundamental questions about Australian security and independence in the context of the American alliance.     

A Regulatory Analysis of Australia's Anti-dumping Law and Policy: Statutory Failure or Regulatory Capture?

Anti-dumping and countervailing (AD/CVD) law and policy permits nations to impose corrective duties against unfairly traded imports found to have injured domestic industries. However, administrators of AD/CVD policy around the world are criticised for misusing the remedy as an elaborate and complex protectionist mechanism.
A problem with many critical reviews is that explanations as to how misuse occurs, or at what point in the administrative process regulatory authorities are able to exercise bias, are rarely provided. In the Australian context, the task of identifying a source and opportunity for misuse is made complicated by three major forces affecting the decision-making processes of the Australian regulatory authorities, the Australian Customs Service and Australian Anti-Dumping Authority (ACS and ADA). This article examines the influence which Australia's international obligations, government and public policy processes and the Federal Court have upon the administration of AD/CVD law and policy in order to determine the degree of autonomy afforded to the ACS and ADA.     

Asia's rise and the politics of Australian aid policy

Abstract The 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.     

Australia's New Federalism: Recipes for Marble Cakes

In July of 1990, the prime minister of Australia announced aprogram to achieve a closer partnership between the three levelsof government. His concern was the degree of bureaucratic overlapin the Australian federation and the hindrances to mobility,portability, and uniformity which made the Australian economymore balkanized than Europe post-1992. The announcement capitalizedon dissatisfaction with Australian federalism that had beengrowing in the 1970s and 1980s, and its timing coincided witha range of catalysts making the current climate favorable forchange. The new federalism unleashed a process of review andreform across some forty program or subprogram areas over aneighteen-month period with a prime objective to attain roleclarification for the three levels of government in shared functionalareas, somewhat akin to the German horizontal model of federalrole allocation. The process survived a political challengethat toppled the prime minister, aspects of the new federalismforming a key element of that challenge. Constitutional changeis also part of the agenda and already the Australian experienceholds a number of lessons for other federal systems.     

MORE VALUABLE CONFERENCE BOOKS

Public Administration in Australia: A Watershed. Edited by JOHN POWER (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger in association with the Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration, 1990, 168 pp).
Decision Making in Australian Government: The Cabinet and Budget Processes. Edited by BRIAN GALLIGAN, J.R. NETHERCOTE and CLIFF WALSH (Canberra: Centre of Research on Federal Financial Relations and Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration, ACT Division 1990, 141 pp).
Budgetary Management and Control: The Public Sector in Australasia. Edited by JOHN FORSTER and JOHN WANNA (Melbourne, Macmillan, 1990, 206 pp).     

Accountability in Australian Government: Towards the Year 2000

This symposium is based on a workshop held at the Australian National University on 27 March 1998, sponsored by the Australia Institute, the Centre for Australian Public Centre Management at Griffith University and the Institute of Public Administration, Australia. The Political Science Program, within the Research School of Social Sciences, at the ANU provided a congenial environment for the workshop. Marian Simms is grateful to Barry Hindess for his ongoing support for the 'Accountability in Australian Government' project. More particularly Christel Cools, Louise Sims and Wayne Naughton provided technical back-up. Peter McCarthy assisted with library research. Dhammika Dharmapala made useful comments on the final version.     

Structural Reform of Local Government in Australia: A Sustainable Amalgamation Model for Country Councils

Abstract. Council amalgamation has always been the major policy instrument for structural reform in Australian local government. While the Australian literature has spawned taxonomic attempts at classifying models of structural change in local government, a serious deficiency in this body of work has been the specification of amalgamation as an undifferentiated category embodying the unconditional merger of many small local authorities into a single larger entity. This paper seeks to remedy this problem by developing a model of sustainable amalgamation and contrasting it with unconditional amalgamation in using a stylised example derived from four existing Western Australian country shires contemplating consolidation.     

James Bryce: Englishness and Federalism in America and Australia

That the Constitution of the United States served as a modelfor the Australian federation is well established, and is inany case evident from the resemblance of federal institutionsbetween the two countries. Yet substantial differences remain,largely through the determination of the Australian foundersto retain the parliamentary heritage of the Westminster systemof government. It has been pointed out that fames Bryce's lavishexpositions of the American federation distorted American realitieswhen they were viewed through uncompromisingly English lenses.It was Bryce's version of the American federation that allowedthe Australian founders to accommodate their new creation tothe English legacy. However, in Bryce's acclaimed comparativework, his overriding aim was to promote the abiding excellenceof English institutions.