{"title":"Integrity and Accountability in Australian Government and Politics","authors":"Z. Nwokora","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.25","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.25","url":null,"abstract":"The integrity and accountability research agenda in Australia has been primarily concerned with the problem of corruption in public life. This chapter provides an overview of this scholarship, including its central concepts and motivations, and develops the argument that the anti-corruption research agenda has been heavily influenced by public debates about corruption. Therefore, as the problem of corruption (and, just as importantly, the perceptions of this problem) has changed in form, so too has the focus of anti-corruption research. The chapter tracks the development of this literature against the backdrop of the practical history of corruption in Australia. The author argues that in recent years there has been a significant shift towards a more politicized and less bureaucratic understanding of corruption. This break from the past has serious implications for how corruption might be effectively confronted in the future.","PeriodicalId":229444,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Australian Politics","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121345921","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Disrupting Media and Politics","authors":"Julianne Schultz","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.21","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.21","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter explores how, as the traditional media has become weaker due to digital disruption, falling profitability, and audience fragmentation, the political ecosystem in Australia has also eroded. Significant job losses have reduced the scale of public interest journalism, and the frantic attention-seeking of the 24-hour news cycle has contributed to a perception of chaos in politics. This is manifest in frequent changes of prime minister outside the electoral cycle, and in polarization of opinion and comment online and in traditional media designed to increase impact. Commercial media has long embraced a quasi-institutional role and been happy to use this stature, but has resisted external regulation. Self-regulation of the press and institutional oversight of broadcasting self-regulation are relatively weak; social media and online platforms are not regulated; and the implied right to freedom of political speech, the bedrock of the media’s unique political role, was only ‘found’ by the High Court in 1997. This chapter argues that effective regulation, which addresses the needs of citizens as well as consumers, and other interventions including strengthening public broadcasting and securing legislative (even constitutional) recognition of the democratic value of media freedom are required to invigorate a robust political ecosystem.","PeriodicalId":229444,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Australian Politics","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121505410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Religion and Politics","authors":"Marion Maddox","doi":"10.4324/9781315604824-18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315604824-18","url":null,"abstract":"Religious and secular institutions, forces and impulses have intersected repeatedly in Australian political life, not always along clear-cut lines. This chapter begins by analysing ways in which settler society sometimes deemed Indigenous peoples too irreligious for full participation in the new (Christian) polity, and at other times found their traditions too religious to be recognized under (secular) Australian law. It then considers how ideas of the Australian nation have assumed and disputed religious foundations. Religious institutions and their members have played prominent parts in party politics and in public policy. After considering key examples, the chapter reverses the standard analysis by considering how politics has shaped religion.","PeriodicalId":229444,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Australian Politics","volume":"102 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120986975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Indigenous–Settler Relationships","authors":"Elizabeth Strakosch","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.20","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter argues that the relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous societies in Australia is complex and conflictual, and that the nature of that relationship is itself a site of conflict. It identifies and elaborates the dominant ways of understanding the relationship in the Australian context: policy, rights, nation-building, and sovereignty. Different registers have been more influential at different times, but all have been present throughout the history of Indigenous–state interactions. While the policy register is dominant in academic and public discourse, this chapter suggests that viewing the relationship in terms of sovereign political orders is more useful.","PeriodicalId":229444,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Australian Politics","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130327669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond ‘Structured Inattention’","authors":"Morgan Brigg, Lyndon Murphy","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.32","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.32","url":null,"abstract":"Australian scholarly knowledge of Indigenous politics is predominantly conducted on settler–colonial terms that elide Indigenous sociopolitical order and shape Indigenous agency. This manifests in an evolving form of ‘structured inattention’ that implicitly or explicitly accepts the bounds of settler rule and operates across apparently divergent policy phases regardless of party-political differences. Exceptions to this pattern have tended to have relatively less influence on public policy, but have persisted from the 1980s. Critical approaches are currently burgeoning, apparently in response to unresolved questions about how colonial domination shapes politics and governing, and how these phenomena are known and studied.","PeriodicalId":229444,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Australian Politics","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127817513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Policy Learning in the Australian Public Service","authors":"Alastair Stark","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.24","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.24","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter discusses the ways in which the Australian Public Service (APS) learns about public policy. The chapter has four sections. First, it presents a typology of policy-learning that can be used to organize research into the policy-learning capacities of a national bureaucracy. Second, it outlines a range of policy-learning successes that can be attributed to the APS and characterizes them using the typology. Third, the chapter examines several long-running criticisms of the APS that seem to be apposite to its capacity to learn lessons in the future. These are also characterized in relation to the typology. Finally, evidence of the APS’s strengths and weaknesses is weighed up in a conclusion, which culminates with an argument that the service’s key strength is its capacity to effectively produce large amounts of ‘single-loop’ and ‘instrumental’ types of policy-learning.","PeriodicalId":229444,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Australian Politics","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122150944","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social Protection and Vulnerability","authors":"J. Murphy","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.10","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter surveys the interlocking ensemble of public policy choices made in Australia around the beginning of the twentieth century, tracing the impact they have had over time. Policies of tariff protectionism, wage arbitration, racial exclusion, and social welfare were embedded in institutions. Using the framework of historical institutionalism, the chapter charts the gradual demolition of these policies, and of the distinctive pattern of social protection they attempted to develop. Shifting from a highly protected economy to one more exposed to global forces undermined the old system of ‘domestic defence’, placing significant pressure on a male breadwinner wages system and on the social welfare institutions built on the presumption of fair wages. In this scenario, it is remarkable that the welfare system has remained largely intact.","PeriodicalId":229444,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Australian Politics","volume":"69 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130483235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Politics of the Environment in Australia","authors":"K. Crowley","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.16","url":null,"abstract":"Australia has a distinctive environment, with rich remnant biodiversity, mega-diversity (Kirkpatrick 1994), and World Heritage listings, but it persists with Eurocentric settler practices, exploiting its natural resources, and rolling back its ecological frontiers. Valuing nature and transitioning to sustainability are advocated by experts, academics, green political parties, environmental NGOs, and, increasingly, by civil society. However, attention to environmental policy waxes and wanes according to national circumstances, with the major parties typically more accommodating of pressures to develop than protect the environment. Ecology and climate change are therefore persistent challenges that are routinely subject to political contestation and polarization. While recurrent developmentalism, environmental impacts and policy failures are central to Australian politics today, they are not prominent in political or policy-based analysis. This chapter presents an overview of the key issues.","PeriodicalId":229444,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Australian Politics","volume":"35 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132653474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Australian Politics in Local Government","authors":"Jacob Deem","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.35","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.35","url":null,"abstract":"The majority of Australians live in capital cities, and the urban–rural divide represents one of the most deeply ingrained and enduring cleavages in Australian society. Regional governance is therefore a crucial part of place-making in Australian politics. This chapter highlights the strengths and challenges for local government in Australia, paying particular attention to regional and rural governance. It does so from two perspectives. The first is a top-down focus on the institutional arrangements that can either privilege or marginalize regional interests, and includes an examination of the constitutional, electoral, and executive forces that affect decision-making for these areas. The second perspective is bottom-up, and considers Australian citizens’ identification with, and sense of belonging to, regional areas. It draws on insights from recent survey data to analyse individual-level identities and their influence on political views, and also considers the broader contribution of the outback and the ‘bushman’ as important (if challenged) features of Australian national identity and popular rhetoric, which is accessible to both regional and metropolitan residents.","PeriodicalId":229444,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Australian Politics","volume":"71 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126220425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Performance in the Public Sector","authors":"Jeannette Taylor","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.26","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198805465.013.26","url":null,"abstract":"Big claims have been made about the application of performance management in the public sector. In addition to improving accountability, performance management has been widely promoted as a useful managerial tool that is capable of improving organizational performance. This chapter reviews the literature on performance management in the public sector, paying particular attention to empirical research on its implementation in the Australian public sector. The review findings suggest that the promise of the performance-enhancing effects of performance management in the public sector is likely to remain an illusion until public managers are able to effectively address the various challenges associated with its implementation, particularly around non-technical issues.","PeriodicalId":229444,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Australian Politics","volume":"108 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130026799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}