PROGRAM BUDGETING REFORMS IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Abstract: This study describes and assesses the recent progress (1975–83) in implementing program budgeting in South Australia. It outlines (1) the leadership of South Australia in this field in Australia, (2) the ways in which administrators adapted program budgeting for successful implementation, (3) the changing emphases which occurred in the reform process, involving parliamentarians, central control departments of government, and responses in ordinary departments, and (4) the relationships of the reforms to political change where that change was reflective of different government attitudes to social reform and to the economic management of stagflation. The study also evaluates what more needs to be done, especially in the more difficult analytical components of program budgeting. In appreciation that program budgeting is of recent origin in Australian public administration, the writing is deliberately structured to explain the essential nature of program budgeting, using the relevant general principles to assess the progress of implementation in South Australia.     

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

In many ways 1979 will be seen as a watershed in South Australian political and public administrative affairs, rivalling the end of the Playford era in 1965. The Dunstan years were to be exchanged for a hard-headed, sound economic management approach to government, according to his Labor successor, Mr Des Corcoran. However, as a result of an election called some eighteen months prematurely, a new Liberal government took office within six months of Mr Dunstan's resignation, emphasizing "small government" and a return to the "free enterprise system".