A few years ago Western Australia overhauled its health system with the aim of improving patient outcomes and saving the state money. One of the leaders of the reform program, former health deputy secretary Rebecca Brown, discusses how they did it and what she learned.
We still know much less about how to respond effectively to pre-teens and the developmental challenges they face, due to an intense policy and practice focus on the early years in recent times. So, it stands to reason that this transition is ripe for policy intervention around promoting strong support for parenting and families.
As an innovative, real-time exercise, IPAA Queensland polled over 400 public purpose workers at their recent annual forum. In a live session choreographed by Ben Schramm from the Cube Group, participants were posed a series of six statements about public purpose partnerships and asked to decide whether each proposition was a myth or a reality. Some of the answers were surprising.
Jacqui Curtis hit the ground running on her first day as inaugural head of the human resources profession within the Australian Public Service, offering the benefit of her experience in people management at the strategic level in a speech to about 1100 public servants. “It’s you who ultimately have the most skin in the game […]
The NSW Government committed $38 million to four large air tankers in preparation for one of the state’s most dangerous fire seasons. Available for service this November, the aircraft can unleash 11,300 litres of water or fire retardant in a single flight. The effects of bushfires are devastating, so it’s important to invest in disaster […]
Sometimes governments create policies that have unintended consequences or attempt to incentivise certain behaviours in ways that create unwanted impacts elsewhere. This is why it’s important to consider the bigger picture.
Brenton Caffin compares his experience of public innovation in Australia and overseas, and whether innovation's chequered history in Australia can be overcome to prove its worth to service delivery. He champions an innovation-through-action approach, and explores the experience of embedding innovative skills and practices through the lens of a project team in Western Australia.
Water theft burst into the national consciousness with a Four Corners story detailing alleged illegal pumping of water from the Murray-Darling river system and failures in regulation by the New South Wales government. Several reviews and inquiries both before and since the scandal emerged outlined serious issues with compliance and enforcement, and recommended major changes.
Too many efforts to build trust start from the premise of ‘once people understand the benefits they’ll give us social licence to do whatever is needed’. It would be very helpful to ask people what it would take to trust us. These are all things to discuss authentically, early, regularly and openly with citizen engagement to drive policy development.
‘Remember the saying, not all the good ideas are on your side and not all your enemies are on the other side.’ That's from Anna Bligh, former Premier of Queensland. Like death, drugs and alcohol, and sex, marriage law has been a zone of hot-blooded political debate, but also of genuine bipartisanship. Part 4 of the ‘Politics of the unmentionables’.
There are some pretty fundamental reasons why governments continue spending money on poorly performing programs, explains DJPR deputy secretary David Clements. But he also has advice on how to make change in complex systems.
Pia Andrews explains the idea of “Government as a Platform”, commonly known as GaaP, including the benefits, challenges and how you could apply it in your everyday work, regardless of whether you work in policy, regulation, service delivery, or anything else.
How could government procurement be made easier? Pia Andrews shares some insights on how procurement reform in itself can be something of a red herring unless it occurs within a broader program of reform.
The next wave of dramatic service-channel change is happening right now, and again, people are largely seeing it as a future issue, not for now. What will be the impact and opportunities of personal AI helpers (Siri, Alexa, etc.) and changes to the infrastructure required right now if we want public services to be responsive to change and changing user needs?
Rather than sleep-walking towards yet another debt crisis, and the misery such nightmare reality would bring, the Commonwealth can open up pathways toward horizons of hope, with rich and poor walking in harmony towards a fairer, more secure, more sustainable and more prosperous future in which all can share, says the secretary-general of The Commonwealth.
