Special Features | The Mandarin

The potential downside of proactive staff

by David Donaldson

Proactivity at work can help solve problems and create new innovations. Just make sure your energy is directed wisely.

How to manage the challenges of making regulatory changes

by The Mandarin

No matter who wins the up-coming federal and state elections, new governments will try to put their stamp on the regulatory world they oversee. Mark Pearson shares important factors to consider when contemplating regulatory change.

The next long wave of reform — where will the ideas come from?

by Terry Moran

Terry Moran's Accountability Roundtable address pays tribute to Jim Carlton AO; lays out how Moran views the next wave of reform; and cites the key steps Moran thinks must be taken as part of David Thodey's review of the Australian Public Service.

The APS’s role in restoring public trust

by The Mandarin

Australia’s leading institutions, including government, business, NGOs and media, are among the least-trusted in the world at a time when the Australian economy has experienced 25 years of economic growth. What can the Australian Public Service do to help bridge the trust divide?

Housing policy reset is overdue, and not only in Australia

by The Mandarin

There’s a growing sense that core aspects of the governmental mindset that have underpinned housing policy since the 1980s are long overdue for a rethink. And not just in Australia. Federal and state elections in coming weeks provide a timely moment for Australians to reflect on the increasingly obvious failure of governments to manage the triple crises of inflated property prices, lack of affordable housing for people on low to moderate incomes, and property market volatility.

Supporting NDIS participants’ interpersonal relationships

by The Mandarin

Is a critical ingredient to the success of the National Disability Insurance Scheme being neglected? Laura Davy and Ariella Meltzer argue that under current policy settings, the answer is yes.

We know WHAT we need to do. Will someone tell us HOW?

by Nicholas Gruen

When policy problems are complex, we need to understand and learn from the front line. Nicholas Gruen explains ways to improve the early, middle and late stages of institutional learning and change-making, to enable successful policy development. It’s election season in Australia. I can feel the announceables coming on; indeed…

APS Review draft: everyone’s heard it all before, implementation is the challenge

by Stephen Easton

David Thodey says that implementing lasting reform for the APS would be challenged by the requirement for both realism and and optimism. As always, reform will need strong leadership and enthusiastic support at all levels, in all locations and across all functions.

Adam Smith was a feminist economist: Care—the essay

by Nicholas Gruen

Our culture is awash with abstraction, universalism and instrumentalism, and as such is desperately in need of balancing with precisely the kind of thing that the ethics of care can offer. Here are some introductory reflections.

The public service and caretaker government

by Geoff Gallop

Elections are periods of intense emotion and elevated temptation. The stakes are high and the political process is highly charged. The government will want to maximise the benefits that come from incumbency and the opposition (and MPs generally) will want to extract all they can from the extra authority that comes their way in an election.

How we are transforming for peak performance

by The Mandarin

The public service is not immune to the pressures that exist for all businesses and organisations as we enter into an increasingly complex and digital world. We can’t deny that the future is digital and we need to be ready for that.

Car-free cities: are Australians ready to take back the streets?

by David Donaldson

Australian cities are becoming bigger, noisier and more congested. Would restrictions on cars improve our health and stress levels?

The OECD’s 14 principles for a successful public service

by David Donaldson

The OECD has set out its vision for a well-functioning public service, focusing on three areas: values-driven leadership, skilled and effective public servants, and responsive and adaptive public service employment systems.

The automation, data linkage and digital governance problems facing government agencies

by Peter Leonard

Unaccountable algorithms and out-of-control AI are popular topics of discussion. The more immediate issue, however, is how government agencies will set appropriate boundaries for the sharing and release of the public’s personal data. Government agencies’ handling of sensitive data is rightly the subject of significant concern, most recently fuelled by…

Protecting the world from the threat of pandemics

by The Mandarin

With the increase of global travel and trade, new infections can spread rapidly across countries and continents. The need to prepare pandemic response plans that are both flexible and scalable is an urgent challenge for policy-makers and practitioners.