Suchergebnisse

Abstract: The ministerial staff of the present Liberal‐National Country Party government are compared with those of the Labor government between 1972 and 1975. The most striking contrasts between the two groups is that the Coalition staffers are fewer in number (with fewer "political" types) and less "visible" than their Labor counterparts. They also intrude less into the workings of departments and report better relationships with public servants. There is thus a weakening of the representative and party political elements in the Federal government which were built up under the Labor party, and an opening of the way for a possible reassertion of the bureaucratic element. Although Coalition staffers differ from Labor staffers in other respects (for instance more come from private industry and private practice, fewer from journalism), on a number of criteria they have much in common. They are mostly male, in their twenties or thirties, mostly graduates, disproportionately from non‐government schools, with about half from inside and half from outside the public service.

Considers the nature of the Australian Labor Party and Labor governments in the course of a critique of two books on the Party. Stresses the continuity in the ALP's pursuit of the interests of Australian capital when it is in office and its 'structural constitution', that is its distinctive relationship with the working class, especially through the union movement, and with the capitalist class. Evidence to support the analysis is drawn from the experience of the Chifley government during the 1940s, the Whitlam government during the 1970s and the Hawke government during the 1980s.