Royal Commissions in Australia: When Should Governments Appoint Them?

The Cole Royal Commission into AWB sales of wheat to Iraq once again draws attention to questions of when should governments resort to ad hoc inquiries and, in particular, establish royal commissions with their associated prestige and statutory powers to call and examine witnesses and require presentation of documents. In this article, Dr Scott Prasser, author of ‘Royal Commisions and Public Inquiries in Australia (Lexis Nexis 2006) examines the use of royal commissions and other investigatory/inquisitorial instruments of executive government by Commonwealth and state governments.     

Regulate Yourself

The Leveson Inquiry recommended that a new press regulator be created, with a statutory backing—which the government and opposition agreed should be a Royal Charter. Presently, a Press Recognition Panel, backed by the Charter, has been created, but has attracted no requests for recognition. Only one regulator has been set up—IPSO: it has a membership of most of the newspaper and magazine groups in the UK, but will not ask for recognition, since it does not wish to have any formal link with the state. Though the campaign against the Royal Charter has been grossly overblown, the press is right to refuse to join an institution which is guaranteed by the state. State‐backed regulation, in any form, will not in the UK lead to tyranny, censorship or any more than occasional meddling. But a link to the state is a bad idea for an independent press. Not only does this set a bad precedent, opening up a temptation for behind‐the‐scenes pressure, but more importantly it misses the point. Bad and abusive journalism is not improved by regulation. It is improved by journalists understanding the main task of journalism is to report and analyse accurately and neutrally. This complements robust debate and opinion and contributes greatly to a well‐informed citizenry.     

政府信息公开中公共图书馆与档案馆优势比较及角色定位

2008年5月1日正式实施的《中华人民共和国政府信息公开条例》赋予各级档案馆、公共图书馆提供政府公开信息的重要职能。比较而言,目前档案馆在开展政府信息公开服务上,比公共图书馆有更好的物质基础和更多的用户认可。因此,公共图书馆必须找准在政府信息公开中的角色定位,努力缩小差距,与各级档案馆一起成为政府信息公开服务中不可或缺的重要机构。     

Coalition Governments, Divided Governments, and Electoral Theory

For decades theorizing about party competition in two-party and multiparty democracies has proceeded along separate tracks. The former has assumed an idealized world in which one party wins full control of a system's governing institutions in a first-past-the-post election, while the latter posits a world in which elections conducted under a system of proportional representation split control of the parliament among the parties. The contemporary American experience with divided government suggests that the two lines of theorizing greatly exaggerate the differences between two-party and multi-party systems. Where a two-party system has a separation of powers based on independent elections, coalition governments involving shared control of the separate institutions may result. Under such conditions rational voting may be just as demanding in two-party systems as in multi-party systems, and the policy outputs of two-party systems may be no more coherent than the outputs of multi-party systems, contrary to traditional arguments.     

Coalition Governments Versus Minority Governments: Bargaining Power, Cohesion and Budgeting Outcomes

Recent empirical work investigating the role of minoritygovernments in the selection of fiscal policies has shown thatthe majority status does not affect the budget size. Thispaper presents an analytical framework which accounts for thisresult. It combines a government formation game and a budgetgame involving cabinet and parliament. A general indifferenceresult applies. An exogenous shock to the bargaininigenvironment which absorbes the cohesion of the governmentincreases the demand for expenditures. At the same time theconditions for the formation of a minority government arefulfilled. If the formateur is strong, a minority governmentcan be a device for cutting expenditures.     

Tax Expenditures for Local Governments

Foregone revenues of state and local governments have been mostly unreported. This is still a neglected subject in governmental accounting. Such significant amounts can make a difference in the choice between direct and indirect spending, and more budget officers are expected to consider the tax expenditure report as a supplement to budget documents.     

地方政府创新与治理变迁——中国地方政府创新案例的比较研究

经验表明,20世纪90年代以来,社会转型带来的权威危机和管理性危机对中国地方政府公共权力结构与功能等方面形成了严峻的挑战。面对危机情势,各级地方政府在公共管理的权力结构、制度与技术安排上进行了多项治理创新,通过对地方政府的治理创新的比较分析,笔者认为,中国地方政府的创新实践推动了地方治理变迁,地方治理正趋于取代地方管理。但是,这种可选择性替代路径仍然是地方政府主导型的,最终起作用的仍然是地方政府。地方政府的创新符合整体性改革的发展方向,并将有力地推动改革向纵深发展。     

Budget Deficits and Coalition Governments

This paper shows that compromise between different ideologicalmotivations within multiparty governments may result in a biastoward running budget deficits even if all parties in thecoalition prefer balanced budgets. The deficit bias increases withthe degree of ``polarization'' of the ideological motivations andgenerally decreases with the degree of concentration of powerwithin the government. Although the analysis is conducted assuminga proportional representation electoral system, the results willalso apply to majoritarian systems if the winning party comprisesideologically different constituencies. The relationship betweenbudget deficits and multiparty governments is investigated usingdata from a sample of eight European Union countries for the period1971–1990. Analysis on pooled data is partly in line with the theory.Time series within country analysis is less favorable: we findclear support to the theory only in the case of Italy.     

Why Governments Should Produce Balance Sheets

This contribution to a controversy argues that accrual reporting at the whole of government level is appropriate and necessary as it provides a full picture of a government's financial position, discloses the impact of policy over the longer term (and therefore the sharing of the burdens between current and future taxpayers), focuses the attention of governments and public sector managers on the management of total resources and obligations and introduces discipline in financial reporting and therefore ensuring the integrity of the reported information.
Yet, accrual reporting, whether at the whole of government level or individual agency level, will not bring about changes of behaviour necessary to realise the full benefits of financial and other management reforms unless it is complemented by an accrual planning and budgeting regime to ensure that financial performance is planned and assessed on the same basis.     

Rethinking Caretaker Conventions for Australian Governments

Australia has well‐established conventions for caretaker governments. These conventions regulate how a government should operate once an election is called, and have been documented for some decades. Yet the current conventions date from an era when elections usually produced clear and immediate results. Can our caretaker conventions cope with the emerging reality of indecisive elections and long delays before a new government is confirmed? This paper canvasses the state of Australia's caretaker conventions and offers suggestions for an expanded, contemporary code.     

论责任政府及其构建

责任政府是现代立宪政府的多维性特征之一。立宪政府的基本要求在于,现代政府不仅是限权政府,而且是责任政府。政府依法承担责任是有效行使权力的基本保证,也是实现依法治国和依法行政的目标。在我国,构建责任政府不仅是必要的,而且通过建立责任政府体系,发展和完善行政执法责任制等基本路径也是可能的。     

政府应如何提高行政效能

现代政府应加强宏观调控体系和完善法制建设,完善人事评价制度及绩效评价制度,转变政府职能,做到有所为和 有所不为,变人活行政观念为法制行政观念,把有限的社会资源配置利用到最佳状态,以实现政府行政效能的提高。     

New Labour Legacy: Comparing the Labour Governments of Blair and Brown to Labour Governments since 1945

The election of the Conservative–Liberal coalition in May 2010 provides the opportunity to start to map out the record of the Labour governments between 1997 and 2010. This paper deals with the specific question how the Brown/Blair governments performed on public expenditures when compared to the records of UK Labour governments since 1945. Did the public expenditure record of the 1997 represent a departure from that of previous Labour governments? This is important to ascertain since there are strongly held beliefs that New Labour was not committed to Labour's historic commitments of income redistribution and universal benefits. The analysis that follows is constructed around five major public expenditure programmes that reflect Labour's priorities. These include total expenditure, expenditure on health, education, housing and social security.     

Selecting Capital Investment Projects for Local Governments

Faced with burgeoning infrastructure needs and circumscribed capital revenues, local governments must perforce set priorities among competing capital projects submitted by their operating agencies. This process involves value choices and political resolutions in addition to technical considerations. This article finds current priority-setting procedures in need of improvement and suggests a framework for local government assessment and selection of capital investment projects.