Four fresh senior executive faces at the APSC, Regional Development Victoria's first female CEO, and a new Public Access Deputy Commissioner. The latest senior public sector appointments from across the country.
In politics, you sign up to a struggle on behalf of those you claim to represent. You owe them everything you can manage to stitch together to achieve victory. If you want to be a grand failure, better to pick religion, philosophy or art. Not politics. So says Nicholas Gruen in this reposting of his 2008 article on Bob Hawke.
Kerry Kennedy — who died recently in Canberra aged 69 — was a quiet champion of excellence in public administration, a committed family man and a fine baritone.
On the surface, the choice to restructure of government departments and agencies looks easy. But don't be fooled. Bob McMullan and Sean Innis on how to make better machinery of government decisions.
The Four Corners program has raised several new allegations regarding youth detention. We take a look at the policy challenges cited by various parties in this emotive matter.
More than 45,000 children live in out-of-home-care in Australia today. This number is unacceptably large and reforms nationally and internationally have begun to recognise this.
The assessment of risk has been dominated by a focus on perceived risk behaviours. This has its limitations, and it's time that assessment of risk-culture maturity looked beyond behaviours and gave equal recognition to how organisations determine accountabilities for risk and the tools and processes that enable, support -- and sometimes impede -- consideration of risk in decision-making.
The next government must meet the challenge of refreshing the social licence between science, government and the many and diverse communities that make up our nation.
Despite more than two decades of economic success in Australia, there are communities across the country where families still feel excluded, isolated and disempowered. A place-based approach addresses problems specific to a location or community and empowers it with a degree of control and accountability.
Almost one-quarter of the Australian population speaks a language other than English at home. But health services in Australia are largely delivered in English only. Interpreters are a vital bridge between health services and consumers, and access to interpreters in health care should be seen as a basic human right.
Labor would at least match the Coalition’s commitment to spend $104.5 million over four years on a federal anti-corruption commission, and while 80% of Australians support one with a full suite of strong powers, public hearings remain the key issue. While Labor has committed to an agency that would delve…
Something strange happens when politicians leave the political stage. The other side suddenly becomes much more civil – even affectionate. There is an outbreak of bipartisanship or non-partisanship. It is as though, after years of fighting across the chamber, the political opponents shove babel fish into their ears and hear each other for the first time.
The third article in a three-part series on the formulation of Australia’s firearms policy; the power of pro-gun interests has the potential to pervert our political conversation the way it has done in the US. In Australia, cool heads must prevail.
The most useful tools for senior public servants are “persuasion and trust” in the view of former Commonwealth secretary Gordon de Brouwer, who sits on the APS Review panel. The roles of government ministers and department heads are “more complex” and less clearly defined than those of chief executives and…
Things were rather gloomy at Wednesday's meeting of the Melbourne Economic Forum, and it wasn't due to the wintery weather that had finally arrived.
