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Special Feature

As work gets more ambiguous, younger generations may be less equipped for it

by The Conversation

Generations Y and Z want interesting and novel work, but research indicates they lack the skills and confidence required to manage uncertainty when it occurs.

Special Feature

Why we need to stop paying executives for performance

by Geoffrey Edwards

There is an element of self-serving circularity in the arguments used to justify high executive salaries. But lowering the ceilings on SES pay could be a step to re-energising 'frank and fearless' policymaking.

Special Feature

Making information accessible — for everyone

by The University of Melbourne

Essential but often complex services need to be accessible for all, including those with cognitive disabilities. Here’s how you do it.

Special Feature

Blurring the lines: when conflicted mandates undermine agency performance

by David Donaldson

Being given the task of both regulating and promoting the same industry is a recipe for frustrated staff and poor performance. What can agencies do about conflicting mandates?

Special Feature

When it comes to company tax, we are a high-tax country, because it works well for us

by The Conversation

On one measure our company tax rate is the third-highest, but we like it that way because it allows us to give big tax refunds to local shareholders, many of them retirees.

Special Feature

Fake breath tests: VicPol agrees to improve ethics and evidence-based leadership

by Stephen Easton

Victoria Police has accepted 23 recommendations from its former chief Neil Comrie following last year’s revelations of faked breath tests. The force needs to improve its ethics, integrity, accountability and governance, according to the former chief commissioner, who investigated the practice of recording fake clean breath tests to pretend…

Special Feature

Criminal histories of Australian organised crime offenders

by Harley Dennett

Organised crime offenders start later and the offences that bring them into a life of crime are typically more serious.

Special Feature

Pyramid v Sparrow: the key to enforcing effective regulation

by The Mandarin

Two classic regulatory approaches. But where does the biggest bang for the regulatory buck lie? Is it in education or in punishment?

Special Feature

It’s not just the isolation. Working from home has surprising downsides

by The Conversation

Stress, troubled sleep and interrupted family time are some of the little-known downsides from working from home.

Special Feature

There’s more to life than money, and NZ Treasury has the charts to prove it

by Stephen Easton

The NZ Treasury continues to refine its four-dimensional foray into the measurement of national wellbeing with a new online Living Standards Framework Dashboard.

Special Feature

Flexible work a hit with ABS staff as ‘virtual teams’ become the norm

by Stephen Easton

Australian Bureau of Statistics staff have enthusiastically taken up teleworking and other flexible employment arrangements over the past few years, and staff surveys suggest most feel their work lives have improved as a result.

Special Feature

Martin Parkinson: public servants should school rookie MPs and ministers

by Stephen Easton

The public service should provide training to new members of parliament, ministers and their staff, in the view of senior Commonwealth secretary Martin Parkinson. He also thinks his colleagues should put the spotlight on the cost of restructuring.

Special Feature

Driverless and zero emissions vehicles – driving transport, energy and government closer

by The Mandarin

Michel Masson, CEO of Infrastructure Victoria, discusses the increasing convergence of transport and energy policy, and the need for governments — at all levels and across states — to work together to ensure we reap the benefits of new vehicle technologies. Driverless and zero emissions vehicles each have the potential…

Special Feature

Morrison’s decision to recognise West Jerusalem the latest bad move in a mess of his own making

by Stephen Easton

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will have learned a valuable foreign policy lesson in the past day or so as it relates to the Holy Land. As ye sow, so shall ye reap (Galatians 6:7). When Morrison allowed a thought bubble to become a political ploy in the Liberal party’s desperation…

Special Feature

Using indicators to uncover ‘toxic’ workplace for women

by David Donaldson

Disproportionately small numbers of women in an office can be an indicator of deeper problems, says the man leading Victoria Police's response to a review of discrimination and sexual harassment.