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Features

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.

Special Feature

A loose approach to governance and ministerial oversight hampers Indigenous outcomes

by Stephen Easton

COMMENT: Close scrutiny during Senate estimates has done little to improve the governance and ministerial oversight of one of the federal government's key Indigenous agencies.

Special Feature

Empowering our senior public servants with political skills

by Geoff Gallop

Could political skills re-empower the public service to deliver on efficient, effective and ethical government? What’s at stake is the very belief that the public service can add value, writes former state premier Geoff Gallop.

Special Feature

Recruit smarter: a better way to do business

by The University of Melbourne

A two-year pilot implemented for the Victorian state government found simple strategies like de-identifying CVs and changing the language in job advertisements can have a huge practical effect in overcoming unconscious bias.

Special Feature

What do different generations want from work?

by David Donaldson

There are plenty of stereotypes about what the different generations want out of work, but on the big questions there's actually little difference, say experts.

Special Feature

Can markets do the job of regulators?

by Benedict Sheehy

There are four common types of market failures that support a call for regulatory intervention. Three of these were identifiable during the Banking Royal Commission, writes law school head and regulation expert Dr Benedict Sheehy.