Suchergebnisse

1. The post-war period and the Whitlam government -- 2. The Fraser government -- 3. The Hawke-Keating governments -- 4. The Howard government -- 5. The Rudd-Gillard governments -- 6. The Abbott-Turnbull governments -- 7. The national story and policy legitimacy -- 8. Professionalisation and technical legitimacy -- 9. Managing risk and administrative legitimacy.

This thesis explores the context in which the Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security, 1974-1977 came to be. The Whitlam Government wanted to reform the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) so as to depoliticise it and make it more effective in combating genuine threats to the state, including global terrorism. In early 1973 the government's reform was stalled as a result of the attorney-general's raid on ASIO offices. The Prime Minister announced in late 1973 that an inquiry into ASIO would arise at some point. The Australian Labor Party took the idea of a judicial inquiry into Australia's intelligence and security apparatus to the 1974 election. Within weeks of returning to office the Whitlam Government decided to launch the Royal Commission. Even by the time of the government's dismissal in 1975 the process of ASIO's reform was advanced. The decision to keep ASIO was made by Labor prior to the 1972 election. This was despite experiencing two decades of ASIO's ideological partisanship, which had consequences for Labor. But the party's decision was not inconsistent with its history, having been an anti-communist party from the 1920s and responsible for ASIO's creation in 1949. The Royal Commission's terms of reference ensured that an intelligence apparatus would continue to be available to the Commonwealth. The decision to erect the Royal Commission was also widely supported by major Australian newspapers. When the Royal Commission finished in 1977 a lasting bipartisan consensus on ASIO was emerging.

This thesis explores the context in which the Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security, 1974-1977 came to be. The Whitlam Government wanted to reform the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) so as to depoliticise it and make it more effective in combating genuine threats to the state, including global terrorism. In early 1973 the government's reform was stalled as a result of the attorney-general's raid on ASIO offices. The Prime Minister announced in late 1973 that an inquiry into ASIO would arise at some point. The Australian Labor Party took the idea of a judicial inquiry into Australia's intelligence and security apparatus to the 1974 election. Within weeks of returning to office the Whitlam Government decided to launch the Royal Commission. Even by the time of the government's dismissal in 1975 the process of ASIO's reform was advanced. The decision to keep ASIO was made by Labor prior to the 1972 election. This was despite experiencing two decades of ASIO's ideological partisanship, which had consequences for Labor. But the party's decision was not inconsistent with its history, having been an anti-communist party from the 1920s and responsible for ASIO's creation in 1949. The Royal Commission's terms of reference ensured that an intelligence apparatus would continue to be available to the Commonwealth. The decision to erect the Royal Commission was also widely supported by major Australian newspapers. When the Royal Commission finished in 1977 a lasting bipartisan consensus on ASIO was emerging.

During the 1970s the Whitlam government in Australia and the Kirk government in New Zealand each adopted a policy of new nationalism in an attempt to come to terms with a rapidly changing and increasingly decolonised world marked by the decline of Britain as an economic and military force in the world. In each case this new nationalism prioritised local and national identities over a larger pan‐British identity. Both governments were more inward‐looking and yet also more engaged with the Asia‐Pacific region than their predecessors. They promoted their own national distinctiveness and independence, while also forging closer relationships with each other and the wider region. Both embraced a new understanding of their geographic position and repudiated the idea that Australia and New Zealand were European nations on the edge of Asia. The nationalisms they promoted were remarkably similar, yet there are important differences that reflect their different ethnic makeup and geographic position.

An "urban" definition of public policy problems raises great difficulties for the policy maker. If we emphasize implementation as a primary factor in evaluating public policy, we have good grounds for questioning the wisdom of an urban perspective. But urban questions have been and still are major areas of concern in public policy formulation. The ALP federal platform contains a long section on urban policies, reiterating what the Department of Urban and Regional Development (DURD) was striving to achieve under the Whitlam Government. At state level, urban problems have been tackled with varying degrees of success and seriousness, although at this level overall urban perspectives tend to be ignored, for reasons we shall indicate. However urban planning authorities have been tried in most capital cities, and metropolitan plans have been drawn up for all of them. They have concentrated mainly on land use and urban form. By the 1970s a common criticism of such planning was that it left aside many social and economic aspects of urban growth. For example, one (admittedly partisan) government source—the N.S.W. Department of Decentralization and Development—noted "a massive and increasing trend towards socio‐economic segregation":…the remoteness of central city facilities …the cost of commuter transport and the inadequacy of community facilities in low‐income outer suburbs are operating to perpetuate economic under‐privilege.

By 1963, Robert Menzies had been prime minister for thirteen years, Australia had its first troops in Vietnam, and change was in the air. There would soon be street protests over women's rights, Aboriginal land rights and the Vietnam War, and unprecedented student activism. With the Cold War lingering, ASIO was concerned that protests were being orchestrated to foment revolution. The Protest Years tells the inside story of Australia's domestic intelligence organisation from the last of the Menzies years to the dismissal of the Whitlam government. With unrestricted access to ASIO's internal files, and extensive interviews with insiders, for the first time the circumstances surrounding the alleged role of ASIO in the demise of the Whitlam Government are revealed, and the question of the CIA's involvement in Australia is explored. The extraordinary background to the raid on ASIO headquarters in Melbourne by Attorney-General Lionel Murphy, and Australia's efforts at countering Soviet bloc espionage, as well as the sensitive intelligence activities in South Vietnam, are exposed. This is a ground-breaking political and social history of some of Australia's most turbulent years as seen through the secret prism of ASIO. The Protest Years is the second of three volumes of The Official History of ASIO.

1. Nuclear policy : managing the dual-use challenge of nuclear fission -- 2. Exploring Australia's nuclear options : Second World War to the Whitlam government (1945-75) -- 3. Bedding down the NPT : the Fraser government (1975-83) -- 4. Nuclear challenges between Washington and Wellington : the Hawke government (1983-91) -- 5. New opportunities and new dangers : the Keating government (1991-96) -- 6. Great power politics, proliferation and terrorism : the Howard government (1996-2007) -- 7. Consensus and stagnation in Australian nuclear policy : the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments (2007-13).

[Introduction]:.The choice of topic was, for me, an easy one. The campaign for open government was the first topic on which I developed an academic and professional interest. That was at a time, in the early 1970s, when the concept of open government did not enjoy widespread acceptance. The mood was aptly captured a little later by Sir Arnold Robinson's explanation to Sir Humphrey Appleby – "Open government is a contradiction in terms. You can be open – or you can have government". Sir Humphrey agreed: the word "secretary", he noted, is after all a derivative of "secret". The first assurance of change was a promise by the new Whitlam Government in 1972 to enact a freedom of information Act along the lines of the 1967 United States law. The realisation of that promise, ten years later, was a confirmation that government was changing, but of how difficult it was to accomplish that change. The intervening development of the legislative model told the story. An interdepartmental committee appointed by the Government to develop a legislative model took nearly two years to prepare its report of 18 pages. Sent back to the drawing board, it returned two years later with a report that had grown to 100 pages. The Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs then took control of the reform agenda, conducting hearings around Australia, receiving submissions in support of a stronger law from over 125 individuals, public interest groups, unions and professional associations, and delivering finally a report of over 500 pages, heralded at the time as one of the finest products of the Senate committee system. The momentum was sustained when six government senators crossed the floor to vote with the Opposition in favour of a stronger FOI law. The Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) was a part, a small but vital part, of the revolution in government and thinking that occurred in Australia. The Act thus serves as a barometer of sorts for measuring the strength of government commitment to openness. I want to return to that issue –problems with the FOI Act, and contemporary challenges to open government – but before doing so it is important to paint a fuller picture of the current structural basis for open government in Australia. I will look at three areas of structural support – legal doctrine, the framework of government, and our philosophy of government.

Australian Constitutional Landmarks presents the most significant cases and controversies in the Australian constitutional landscape up to its original publication in 2003. Including the Communist Party case, the dismissal of the Whitlam government, the Free Speech cases, a discussion of the race power, the Lionel Murphy saga, and the Tasmanian Dam case, this book highlights turning points in the shaping of the Australian nation since Federation. Each chapter clearly examines the legal and political context leading to the case or controversy and the impact on later constitutional reform. With contributions by leading constitutional lawyers and judges, as well as two former chief justices, this book will appeal to members of the judiciary, lawyers, political scientists, historians and people with a general interest in Australian politics, government and history

AbstractThis article examines the budget process as a selection of priorities and how these priorities change over time with changing economic circumstances. Labor governments spend more on health, employment creation schemes, on welfare housing but less on industry assistance and on assisted immigration. The rate of growth of expenditure on social security decreased sharply after 1975. The revenue section examines how different governments have restructured the tax system. Broadly, the McMahon government pursued mildly progressive tax policies, the Whitlam government strongly progressive tax policies. Fraser's tax policies were regressive (except for taxpayers with children), with the Hawke government's policies in this area being nearer to Whitlam than to McMahon. Grouping budgets into election, pre‐election and post‐election budgets provides interesting contrasts. In terms of current (1984–85) prices the 'average' election budget produces tax cuts of $2300 million and expenditure increases of around $1 600 million. The two budgets which preceded the loss of office by the two Liberal Prime Ministers produced particularly large outlay increases. The categories of outlays which show evidence of being used as election‐bait are identified.