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Andrew Podger's monograph, The Role of Departmental Secretaries, Personal reflections on the breadth of responsibilities today, is an important contribution to the broader public policy discourse in Australia. Andrew has been, at times, an unflinching commentator on issues of bureaucratic performance, accountability and responsiveness to government. Andrew's reflections are drawn from his own experiences within the inner circle of Australian policy-making. In this monograph, he presents a highly nuanced portrait of the role of Commonwealth departmental secretaries. Although a 'player' himself at key moments in recent policy history, Andrew is a dispassionate and thoughtful observer of events. This is not merely a memoir: this work is rich in analysis and Andrew offers a number of 'lessons learned' to be heeded (or not) by the present and future generations of policy practitioners.

Australian public administration has undergone dramatic change over the last 50 years through a long sequence of incremental, pragmatic reforms. Australia was a leader of New Public Management in the 1980s and 1990s, subsequently incorporating New Public Governance measures of collaboration and networking. While some critics describe the transformation as 'neo-liberalism', the article favours the more neutral term, 'managerialism', recognising its liberal aspects but challenging claims of rolling back the role of the state. Reflecting on the overall shift today, the author concludes that the measures were not wrong but were taken too far, and important balances were lost. Looking to the future, the article calls for a major correction including reinvestment in the state, not necessarily as far as adoption of Pollitt and Bouckaert's Neo-Weberian State but drawing important lessons from that paradigm.

AbstractThis article highlights the lessons learned from a study of the 2021 Intergenerational Report hosted by the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. That study, published in a book, More than Fiscal, (Podger et al., 2023, More than Fiscal, ANU Press), also advises how to improve future IGRs. The article includes a brief assessment of the extent to which the recently published 2023 IGR takes up the improvements suggested.

AbstractThe study and practice of public administration vary in each and every country, yet there are many lessons to be learned internationally. Public Administration Review (PAR) and the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) have contributed substantially to these lessons over the last 80 years, including for public administration in Australia. That contribution has been particularly in organizational theory and behavioral influence, policy studies, and teaching and research. Australia has tended to emphasize institutions and descriptions of practice. These differences help explain the more limited involvement of practitioners in ASPA and the Institute of Public Administration Australia's too little involvement of scholars. ASPA and PAR have played a leading role in recent years in expanding opportunities for international learning. Such learning requires an appreciation of differences in contexts, including of America's own unique context. Better understanding of Australia's context might lead to a more positive appreciation in the United States of Australia's reform experience. The balancing of scholarly and practitioner perspectives is also required.

Australia has its own unique institutional arrangements within which its civil services operate, yet its experience in public sector human resource management over the last 40 years or so has much in common with that of many other Western democracies, including the United States. It faces enduring challenges such as the relationship between politics and administration while its approach to public management has evolved from traditional Weberian administration through new public management to a much more complex, open and networked system. While the role of government in society has not radically changed, the way in which that role has been exercised has changed significantly. Government employees represent a smaller proportion of the workforce, what they do and their skills have changed dramatically, internal arrangements to foster ethics and to manage staff are different today, new approaches have been adopted to compensate and motivate employees, the diversity of employees has widened, and the place of human resource management (HRM) in agencies' strategic management processes has ebbed and waned. In each of these areas, human resource (HR) managers in Australia today face difficult questions about future directions. Most of these will be familiar to HR managers in other countries.

Australia has its own unique institutional arrangements within which its civil services operate, yet its experience in public sector human resource management over the last 40 years or so has much in common with that of many other Western democracies, including the United States. It faces enduring challenges such as the relationship between politics and administration while its approach to public management has evolved from traditional Weberian administration through new public management to a much more complex, open and networked system. While the role of government in society has not radically changed, the way in which that role has been exercised has changed significantly. Government employees represent a smaller proportion of the workforce, what they do and their skills have changed dramatically, internal arrangements to foster ethics and to manage staff are different today, new approaches have been adopted to compensate and motivate employees, the diversity of employees has widened, and the place of human resource management (HRM) in agencies' strategic management processes has ebbed and waned. In each of these areas, human resource (HR) managers in Australia today face difficult questions about future directions. Most of these will be familiar to HR managers in other countries.

While health reform in Australia has been marked by piecemeal, incremental changes, the overall trend to increasing Commonwealth involvement has not been accidental or driven by power-hungry centralists: it has been shaped by broader national and international developments including technological change and the maturing of our nation and its place internationally, and by a widespread desire for a national universal health insurance system. In many respects the Australianhealth system performs well, but the emerging challenges demand a more integrated, patient-oriented system. This is likely to require a further shift towards the Commonwealth in terms of financial responsibility, as the national insurer. But it also requires close cooperation with the States, who could play a firmer role in service delivery and in supporting regional planning and coordination. The likelihood of sharing overall responsibility for the health system also suggests thereis a need to involve the States more fully in processes for setting national policies. This article draws heavily on a lecture presented at the Australian National University in October 2015. It includes an overview of Australia's evolving federal arrangements and the context within which the current Federalism Review is being conducted. It suggests Australia will not return to 'coordinate federalism' with clearly distinct responsibilities, and that greater priority should be given to improving how we manage shared responsibilities. There is a long history of Commonwealth involvement in health, and future reform should build on that rather than try to reverse direction. While critical of the proposals from the Commission of Audit and in the 2014 Budget, the lecture welcomed the more pragmatic approaches that seemed to be emerging from the Federalism Review discussion papers and contributions from some Premiers which could promote more sensible measures to improve both the effectiveness and the financial sustainability of Australia's health and health insurance system. The Commonwealth's new political leadership in 2015 seemed interested in such measures and in moving away from the Abbott Government's approach. But the legacy of that approach severely damaged the Turnbull Government in the 2016 federal election as it gave traction to Labor's 'Mediscare' campaign. In addition to resetting the federalism debate as it affects health, the Turnbull Government now needs to articulate the principles of Medicare and to clarify the role of the private sector, including private health insurance, in Australia's universal health insurance system. Labor also needs to address more honestly the role of the private sector and develop a more coherent policy itself. Abbreviations: COAG – Council of Australian Governments; NHHRC – National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission; PHI – Private Health Insurance; VFI – Vertical Fiscal Imbalance.