Australian Ministerial Advisers and the Royal Commission on Government Administration

The role of the ministerial office was one of the key issues investigated by the Royal Commission on Australian Gvoernment Administration (RCAGA) in 1976. At the time the ministerial office was undergoing new and controversial developments. In the 25 years since the Royal Commission the new ministerial office has become a permanent and accepted part of our machinery of government. This paper reviews RCAGA’s analysis of ministerial advisers and uses research on the Keating advisers in 1995–96 to track how the institution of the ministerial office has developed since the time of the Royal Commission.     

AFGHANISTAN AS A CULTURAL CROSSROADS: LESSONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF ELLA MAILLART,ANNEMARIE SCHWARZENBACH AND NANCY HATCH DUPREE

Much has been written about Afghanistan, a complex cultural space that different people see in different ways. But not all of their views are of equal value. Stereotypes do no-one any favours. Ella Maillart and Annemarie Schwatzenbach were two Swiss women writers who set off for Afghanistan in June 1939. Ella was a traveller who wrote, Annemarie a writer who travelled, but their books give a sense of the realities of Afghanistan, Nancy Dupree first visited more than twenty years later than the two Swiss, but stayed involved for decades in a variety of different ways. She accepted and coped with the fact that the country was changing and would change still further.     

Parliamentary Experience in Australian Ministerial Careers 1996–2007

The study contributes the first detailed exploration of parliamentary experience in Australian ministerial careers. It examines how a dimension of parliamentary experience — holding the office of parliamentary committee chair — features in the careers of a single cohort of ministers and parliamentary secretaries appointed during the Coalition government 1996–2007. The study maps parliamentary experience on two dimensions and finds a typology of five different career paths, depending on positions held and the speed of movement between positions. Taking the analysis further, the second part of the study tracks the appointment of the five subgroups of ministers over time. This reveals patterns in the Prime Minister's ministry‐making over the life of the government. At different times particular types of ministers were selected, in response to varying political needs and the demands of career management that John Howard faced over the government's lifecycle. The study considers the argument that elite grooming processes, where aspiring leaders are tested and trained, are weakening in Australia. It does not find evidence for this proposition based on the patterns of parliamentary experience of ministers at this time.