Central / national / federal government policies Books

According to Communist Party discourse, China's 'New Era’ began when Xi Jinping was anointed Party boss in 2012. The shape of this New Era became eminently clear in 2023 when Xi commenced his third five-year term as General Secretary of the Party, a...

This book draws on more than a decade of workshops organised by the Greater China Australia Dialogue on Public Administration, involving scholars and practitioners from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia. Although these workshops recognised...

'Nations appear and fall, but cities endure and rediscover how to succeed. In this meticulously defined and researched book, Glenn presents ideas for minimising suffering during urban catastrophes. His urgency identifies risks held in urban areas by 3.5...

After official policy advice to governments is publicly released, governments are often accused of ignoring or rejecting their experts. Commonly represented as politicisation, this depiction is superficial. Digging deeper, is there something about the...

Papua New Guinea (PNG), a nation of now almost nine million people, continues to evolve and adapt. While there is no shortage of recent data and research on PNG, the two most recent social science volumes on the country were both written more than a...

Since 2017, the Chinese authorities have detained hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities in 'reeducation camps' in China’s northwestern Xinjiang autonomous region. While the official reason for this mass detention was to...

Creative Frictions explores the relationship between visionary aspects of practice and policy. Despite over 30 years of arts and cultural policy attention, there remains a widespread view among the general public and artists alike that creative...

This festschrift celebrates the extensive contribution John Wanna has made to the research and practice of politics, policy and public administration.It includes both personal acknowledgements of his work and substantial essays on the issues that he...

Given Australia's lack of energy security strategy, it is not surprising that the country is void of institutional knowledge and know-how of Russian foreign energy strategy. The 'lucky country’ as it were, relies entirely on sea-lines of communication to...

When it comes to policymaking, public servants have traditionally learned 'on the job', with practical experience and tacit knowledge valued over theory-based learning and academic analysis. Yet increasing numbers of public servants are undertaking...

Refugee Journeys presents stories of how governments, the public and the media have responded to the arrival of people seeking asylum, and how these responses have impacted refugees and their lives. Mostly covering the period from 1970 to the present,...

Collaboration is often seen as a palliative for the many wicked problems challenging our communities. These problems affect some of the most vulnerable and unempowered people in our community. They also carry significant implications for policy...

This book, the 17th in the federal election series and the ninth sponsored by the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, provides a comprehensive account of the 2019 Australian election, which resulted in the surprise victory of the Coalition under...

Designing Governance Structures for Performance and Accountability discusses how formal and informal governance structures in Australia, the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan may be designed to promote performance and to ensure accountability...

In this monograph, Jennifer Craik undertakes a critical and historical analysis of the main imperatives of arts and cultural policy in Australia. With forensic skill she examines the financial and policy instruments commonly relied upon in this much...

The Council of Australian Governments is trialing Indigenous Community Coordination Pilot schemes around the country aimed at fostering whole-of-government approaches to service delivery and development. A notable example is in the Thamarrurr region of...

Over the last two decades, civil society has helped catalyse responses to the legacies of violent conflicts and oppressive political regimes in Asia and the Pacific. Civil society has advocated for the establishment of criminal trials and truth...

Amidst growing dissatisfaction with the state of government performance and an erosion of trust in our political class, Competing for Influence asks: what sort of public service do we want in Australia?Drawing on his experience in both the public and...

This edited collection examines Commonwealth administration under the leadership Prime Minister Kevin Rudd from 2007-2010. This was a remarkable period in Australian history: Rudd's government was elected in 2007 with an ambitious program for change...

Indigenous policy is a complex domain motivated by a range of social, cultural, political and economic issues. The Council of Australian Governments 'closing the gaps' agenda for addressing Indigenous disadvantage in Australia now includes six targets...

In Australia and New Zealand, many public projects, programs and services perform well. But these cases are consistently underexposed and understudied. We cannot properly 'see'—let alone recognise and explain—variations in government performance when...

This book provides a contemporary overview of developing areas of copyright law in the Asian Pacific region. While noting the tendency towards harmonisation through free trade agreements, the book takes the perspective that there is a significant amount...

Transparency and citizen engagement remain essential to good government and sound public policy. Indeed, they may well be the key to restoring trust in government itself, currently at an all-time low in Australia. It is ironic, then, that this has...

This book investigates why collectivised farming failed in south Vietnam after 1975. Despite the strong will of the new regime to implement collectivisation, the effort was uneven, misapplied and subverted. After only 10 years of trying, the regime...

Gender inequality is profoundly unjust and in clear contradiction to the philosophy of the 'fair go'. In spite of some action by recent governments, Australia has fallen behind in policy and outcomes, even as the G20 group of nations, the Organisation...

As the global 'data revolution' accelerates, how can the data rights and interests of indigenous peoples be secured? Premised on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, this book argues that indigenous peoples have inherent...

This volume provides evidence from many of Australia's leading scholars from a range of social science disciplines to support policies that address challenges presented by Australia’s ageing population. It builds on presentations made to the 2014...

Paul Dibb AM has had an extraordinary career. He enjoys an international scholarly reputation of the highest order, while at the same time he has done much distinguished public service. He was a pioneer in moving back and forth between posts in...

All is not well with the evaluation of government programs and projects.Resources available to any society are limited. If governments are to increase the well-being of their citizens, they must be able to select and implement the socially most...

The engagement of Indigenous Australians in economic activity is a matter of long-standing public concern and debate. Jon Altman has been intellectually engaged with Indigenous economic activity for almost 40 years, most prominently through his...

This important and challenging volume of essays draws on insights from leading academics and public servants from Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada and elsewhere. It provides an excellent series of critiques of both the systemic...

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is one of the major policy innovations of the early 21st century in Australia, representing a new way of delivering services to people with a disability and those who care for them. It has the potential to...

The business of government is necessarily diverse, changing and of considerable scale. A focus on improving the implementation of government programs and initiatives is important because the community expects the Government to deliver on its policies, as...

This book focuses on the challenges facing governments and communities in preparing for and responding to major crises — especially the hard to predict yet unavoidable natural disasters ranging from earthquakes and tsunamis to floods and bushfires, as...

Predictable and unpredictable challenges continually confront the policy settings and policy frameworks of governments. They provide a constantly changing dynamic within which policy-making operates. Governments at all levels are asking their public...

China's Dilemma—Economic Growth, the Environment and Climate Change examines the challenges China will have to confront in order to maintain rapid growth while coping with the global financial turbulence, some rising socially destabilising tensions such...

The ANU College of Law, Migration Law Program is pleased to introduce a text in administrative decision-making in Australian migration law. Over the past eight years we have assembled a team of some of Australia's most highly qualified migration agents...

The Australian nation is a work in progress. So conclude the authors whose views are represented in this most recent offering in the ANZSOG monograph series, Australia Under Construction: Nation-building past, present and future. From its beginnings as a...

Special enumeration procedures for Indigenous Australians were introduced in the 1971 Census, and have been a feature of the Australian national census ever since. In 2001, as in previous years, the Indigenous Enumeration Strategy (IES) involved the use...

This collection of 'critical reflections' on Australian public policy offers a valuable contribution to public discussion of important political and policy issues facing our nation and society. These essays are important not only because of the...

Today's children are tomorrow’s citizens. Good health and well-being in the early years are the foundations for well-adjusted and productive adult lives and a thriving society. But children are being let down in Australia and elsewhere by the lack of...

Numerous issues face Pacific states trying to find their way in the early 21st century. Countries are striving to secure the benefits of modernisation. Governance, law and order are needed to reach such a goal, but development cannot be at the price of...

This book explores the ways in which governments are putting citizens first in their policy-making endeavours. Making citizens the focus of policy interventions and involving them in the delivery and design is for many governments a normative ideal; it...

Intellectual, biological and cultural property rights are a powerful and debatable topic. They offer the possibility for protection of rights to intangible resources, including the products of knowledge and creativity. The forces of globalisation have...

The chapters in this volume canvass political change and development across the Pacific Islands from a variety of perspectives, each contributing to the analysis of a region growing in complexity and in confidence. They fall neatly into three sections:...

This book identifies the critical factors that shaped and influenced New Zealand's defence acquisition decision-making processes from the election of the Fourth Labour Government in 1984 and the subsequent ANZUS crisis, through to the 11 September 2001...